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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 





AMBROSE BIERCE 



BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 



BY 



AMBROSE BIERCE 



V-"gOPYRj«/y^*c^^ 



OCT 1 1892 

Western Authors Publishing Company 



/ 



SAN FRANCISCO 
Murphy Buildirifj 



NEW YORK : 
230-255 Temple Court 



1892 



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\<^. 



Cop5'right 1892 

By Ambrose; bierck 



Printed by 

The Western Authors Publishing Company 

Sau Francisco and New York 



THE ORDER IN WHICH THE BEETLES 
ARE SHOWN 



PAGE 

In Expi<anation 7 

The Key Note 9 

Cain 1 1 

An Obituarian 12 

A Commuted Sentence 13 

A Lifted Finger 16 

Two Statesmen 18 

Matter for Gratitude 20 

Three Kinds of a Rogue 22 

A Man 26 

YE Foe to Cathaye 28 

SamueIv Shortridge 28 

Surprised 29 

Posterity's Award 30 

An Art Critic 32 

The Spirit of a Sponge 33 

Ornitiianthropos 33 

To E. S. Salomon 34 

Dennis Kearney 36 

Finis ^ternitatis 37 

The Veteran 39 

An "Exhibit" 4° 

The Transmigrations of a Soul 42 

An Actor 45 

Famine's Realm 4^ 

The Mackat ad 48 

A Song in Piiaise 5i 

A Poet's Father 5^ 

A Coward 53 

To My Liars 54 

Phil Crimmins 56 

Codex Honoris 57 

To W. H. L. B 57 

Emancipation 58 

jopindonkey 59 

Hell ^o 

By False Pretenses 6i 

Lucifer of the Torch 62 



4 The Order In Which The Beetles Are Shown 

The "Whirligig of Time " 63 

■ A Railroad Lackey 64 

The Legatee 66 

"Died oe a Rose" 67 

A Literary Hangman 67 

At the Eleventh Hour 68 

A Controversialist 69 

Mendax " 70 

The Retrospective Bird n\ 

The Oakland Dog 72 

The Unfallen Brave 75 

A Celebrated Case 76 

Couplets 78 

A Retort 79 

A Vision of Resurrection 80 

Master of Three Arts 82 

Thersites 83 

A Society Leader , 84 

Expositor Veritatis 86 

To " Colonel " Dan Burns 87 

George A. Knight 88 

Unarmed 90 

A Political Violet 92 

The Subdued Editor 94 

"Black Bart, P08" 96 

A "Scion of Nobility " 98 

The ISight of Election 99 

The Convicts' Ball 100 

A Prayer loi 

To One Detested 102 

The Boss's Choice .103 

A Merciful Governor 104 

An Interpretation 105 

A Soaring Toad 106 

An Undress Uniform 107 

Ti-iE Perverted Village 108 

Mr. Sheets 109 

A Jack-at-all-views 1 10 

My Lord Poet in 

To the Fool Killer 112 

One and one are Two 114 

EIONTAGUE LEVKE-SON 1 15 

The Woful Tale of Mr. Peters 1 16 

Twin Unworthies 120 

Another Plan • 121 

A Political Apostate 122 

Tinker Dick 124 

Eats in Sunshine 125 



The Order In Which The Beetles Are Shown 5 

A Word to the: Unwise 1 26 

On the Platform 1 28 

A Dampenkd Ardor 129 

Adair Wklcker, Poet t 29 

To A Word-Warrior 130 



The O1.EOMARGARINE Man 133 

Genesis 135 



The Sunset Gun 138 

The "Viduate Dame" 139 

Four oe a Kind 140 

Reconcii,iation 141 

A Vision of Climat:: , 142 

A " Mass " Meeting , 144 

For President, Leland Stanford 145 

For Mayor 146 

A Cheating Preacher 147 

A Crocodii^e 148 

The American Party 149 

Uncoi^oneIvEd 150 

The Gates Ajar « 151 

Tidings of Good 153 

Arboriculture 155 

A Silurian Holiday 156 

Rejected. . , 157 

Judex Judicatus i5>"^ 

On the Wedding of an AiiRONAuT 159 

A Hasty Inference 160 

A Voluptuary 161 

Ad Cattonum . , 162 

The National Guardsman 163 

The Barking Weasel 1^4 

A Rear Elevation 165 

In Upper San Francisco i36 

NiMROD 168 

Censor Literarum 169 

Borrowed Brains 1 70 

The FyghTynge Seventh 171 

Indicted 172 

Over THE Border ^73 

One Judge 1 74 

To an Insolent Attorney i75 

Accepted i77 

-A Promised Fa.st Train 17^ 

One OF THE Saints i79 

A INIiLiTARY Incident 1^0 

Substance versus Shadow 181 



6 The Order In Which The Beetles Are Shown 

The Committee on Public Morai^s 182 

cai.1f0rnia 1s3 

De Young — a Prophecy 184 

To Either 185 

Disappointment 187 

The Valley of the Shadow of Theft 188 

Down among the Dead Men 189 

The Last Man 191 

Arbor Day 192 

The Piute i93 

Fame i94 

One of the Redeemed 195 

A Critic i97 

A Question of Eligibility 198 

Fleet Strother 200 

Californian Summer Pictures 201 

Slander 203 

James D. Flood 203 

Four Candidates for Senator 204 

A Growler 205 

Ad MOODIU3I - 206 

An Epitaph 207 

A Spade 208 

The Van Nessiad 209 

A Fish Commissioner 211 

To A Stray Dog , 212 

In His Hand 213 

A Demagogue 214 

Ignis Fatuus 215 

From Top to Bottom 216 

An Idler 217 

The Dead King 218 

A Patter Song , 219 

A Caller • • .220 

The Shafter Shafted 221 

THE MUMMERY 

The Two Cavees 225 

Metempsychosis 231 

Slickens 238 

" Peaceable Expulsion " 245 

Aspirants Three 249 

-The Birth of the Rail 258 

A Bad Night 263 

ON STONE 
A Wreath of Immortelles 273 



IN EXPLANATION 

Many of the verses in this book are republished, with con- 
siderable alterations, from various newspapers. The collection 
includes few not relating to persons and events more or less 
familiar to the people of the Pacific Coast — to whom the 
volume may be considered as especially addressed, though 
not without a hope that some part of the contents may 
be found to have sufficient intrinsic interest to commend it to 
others. In that case, doubtless, commentators will be "raised 
up " to make exposition of its full meaning, with possibly an 
added meaning read into it by themselves. 

Of my motives in writing, and in now republishing, I do not 
care to make either defense or explanation, except with refer- 
ence to those persons who since my first censure of them have 
passed away. To one having only a reader's interest in the 
matter it may easily seem that the verses relating to those 
might more properly have been omitted from this collection. 
Eut if these pieces, or, indeed, if any considerable part of my 
work in literature, have the intrinsic worth which by this 
attempt to preserve some of it I have assumed, their perma- 
nent suppression is impossible, and it is only a question of 
when and by whom they shall be republished. Some one 
will surely search them out and put them in circulation. 

I conceive it the right of an author to have his fugitive work 
collected in his lifetime ; and this seems to me especially true 
of one whose work, necessarily engendering animosities, is 
peculiarly exposed to challenge as unjust. That is a charge 



8 IN EXPLANA TION 

that can be best examined before time has effaced the evidence. 
For the death of a man of whom I may have v/ritten what I 
venture to think worthy to live I am no way responsible ; and, 
however sincerely I may regret it, I can hardly be expected to 
consent that it shall affect my fortunes. If the satirist who does 
not accept the remarkable doctrine that while condemning 
the sin he should spare the sinner were bound to let the life of 
his work be coterminous with that of his subject his were a lot 
of peculiar hardship. 

Persuaded of the validity of all this, I have not hesitated to 
reprint even certain "epitaphs " which, once of the living, are 
now of the dead, as all the others must eventually be. The ob- 
jection inheres in all forms of applied satire — my understanding 
of whose laws and liberties is at least derived from reverent 
study of the masters. That in respect of matters herein 
mentioned I have but followed their practice can be shown by 
abundant instance and example. 

AMBROSE BIERCE. 



THE KEY NOTE 

I DREAMED I was dreaming one morn as I lay 
In a garden with flowers teeming. 
On an island I lay in a mystical bay, 

In the dream that I dreamed I w^as dreaming. 

The ghost of a scent — had it followed me there 
From the place, where I truly was resting? 

It filled like an anthem the aisles of the air, 
The presence of roses attesting. 

Yet I thought in the dream that I dreamed I dreamed 
That the place was all barren of roses — 

That it only seemed ; and the place, I deemed. 
Was the Isle of Bewildered Noses. 

Full many a seaman had testified 

How all who sailed near were enchanted, 

And landed to search (and in searching died) 
For the roses the Sirens had planted. 

For the Sirens were dead, and the billows boomed 

In the stead of their singing forever ; 
But the roses bloomed on the graves of the doomed. 

Though man had discovered them never. 



lo BLACK BEETLES LX AMBER 

I thought in my dream 'twas an idle tale, 
A delusion that mariners cherished — 

That the fragrance loading the conscious gale 
Was the ghost of a rose long perished. 

I said, " I will fly from this island of woes." 

And acting on that decision, 
By that odor of rose I was led by the nose, 

For 'twas truly, ah ! truly, Eb'sian. 

I ran, in my madness, to seek out the source 

Of the redolent river — directed 
By some supernatural, sinister force 

To a forest, dark, haunted, infected. 

And still as I threaded ('twas all in the dream 
That I dreamed I was dreaming) each turning 

There were many a scream and a sudden gleam 
Of eyes all uncannily burning ! 

The leaves were all wet with a horrible dew 
That mirrored the red moon's crescent. 

And all shapes were fringed with a ghostly blue, 
Dim, wavering, phosphorescent. 

But the fragrance divine, coming strong and free, 
Led me on, though my blood was clotting, 

Till — ah, joy ! — I could see, on the limbs of a tree, 
Mine enemies hanging and rotting ! 



BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 



CAIN 

LORD, shed thy light upon his desert path, 
And gild his branded brow, that no man spill 
His forfeit life to balk thy hoh' will 
That spares him for the ripening of wrath. 

Already, lo! the red sign is descried, 

To trembling jurors visibly revealed : 

The prison doors obedienth' 3deld, 
The baffled hangman flings the cord aside. 

Powell, the brother's blood that marks your trail — 
Hark, how it cries against 3'ou from the ground, 
Like the far baying of the tireless hound. 

Faith ! to your ear it is no nightingale. 

What signifies the date upon a stone ? 
To-morrow you shall die if not to-da3\ 
What matter when the Avenger choose to slay 

Or soon or late the Devil gets his own. 

Thenceforth through all eternity you'll hold 

No one advantage of the later death. 

Though you had granted Ralph another breath 
Would he to-day less silent lie and cold ? 

Earth cares not, curst assassin, when 3'ou die ; 

You never will be readier than now. 

Wear, in God's name, that mark upon your brow, 
And keep the life you purchased with a lie ! 



12 BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 



AN OBITUARIAN" 

DKATH-POET Pickering sat at his desk. 
Wrapped in appropriate gloom ; 
His posture was pensive and picturesque, 
lyike a raven charming a tomb. 

Enter a party a-drinking the cup 

Of sorrow — and likewise of woe : 
"Some harrowing poetry, Mister, whack up, 

All wrote in the key of O. 

*' For the angels has called my old woman hence 
From the strife (where she fit mighty free). 

It's a nickel a line? Cond — n the expense I 
For wealth is now little to me." 

The Bard of Mortality looked him through 

In the piercingest sort of a way : 
" It is much to me though it's little to you— 

I've taken a wife to-day." 

So he twisted the tail of his mental cow 
And made her give down her flow. 

The grief of that bard was long-winded, somehow- 
There was reams and reamses of woe. 



BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 13 

The widower man which had buried his wife 

Grew lily-like round each gill, 
For she turned in her grave and came back to life — 

Then he cruel ignored the bill ! 

Then Sorrow she opened her gates a-wide, 

As likewise did also Woe, 
And the death-poet's song, as is heard inside, 

Is sang in the key of O. 



A COMMUTED SENTENCE 

T3ORUCK and Waterman upon their grills 
-^ In Hades la}^ with many a vSigh and groan, 

Hotly disputing, for each swore his own 
Were clearly keener than the other's ills. 

And, truly, each had much to boast of — bone 
And sinew, muscle, tallow, nerve and skin, 
Blood in the vein and marrow in the shin. 

Teeth, e^^es and other organs (for the soul 
Has all of these and even a wagging chin) 

Blazing and coruscating like a coal ! 
For Lower Sacramento, you remember, 
Has trying weather, even in mid-December. 

Now this occurred in the far future. All 
Mankind had been a million ages dead, 
And each to her reward above had sped, 

Each to his punishment below, — I call 



14 BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 

That quite a just arrangement. As I said, 
Boruck and Waterman in warmest pain 
Crackled and sizzed with all their might and main. 

For, when on earth, they'd freed a scurvy host 
Of crooks from the State prison, who again 

Had robbed and ravaged the Pacific Coast 
And (such the felon's predatory nature) 
Even got themselves into the Tyegislature. 

So Waterman and Boruck la}^ and roared 
In Hades. It is true all other males 
Felt the like flames and uttered equal wails, 

But did not suffer them ; whereas they bored 
Each one the other. But indeed my tale's 

Not getting on at all. They lay and browned 

Till Boruck (who long since his teeth had ground 
Away and spoke Gum Arabic and made 

Stump speeches even in praying) looked around 
And said to Bob's incinerated shade : 

" Your Excellency, this is mighty hard on 

The inventors of the unpardonable pardon." 

The other soul — his right hand all aflame, 

For 'twas with that he'd chiefly sinned, although 
His tongue, too, like a wick was working woe 

To the reserve of tallow in his frame — 
Said, with a sputtering, uncertain flow, 

And with a gesture like a shaken torch: 

" Yes, but I'm sure we'll not much longer scorch. 
Although this climate is not good for Hope, 

Whose joyous wing 'twould singe, I think the 
porch 



BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 15 

Of Hell we'll quit with a pacific slope. 
Last century I si^^nified repentance 
And asked for commutation of our sentence." 

Even as he spoke, the form of Satan loomed 
In sight, all crimson with reflections 's fire, 
Like some tall tower or cathedral spire 

Touched b}^ the dawn while all the earth is gloomed 
In mists and shadows of the night time. "Sire," 

Said Waterman, his agitable wick 

Still sputtering, "what calls 3'ou back so quick? 
It scarcely was a centur}^ ago 

You left us." "I have come to bring," said Nick, 
" St. Peter's answer (he is never slow 

In correspondence) to your application 

For pardon — pardon me! — for commutation. 

*' He sa^'S that he's instructed to repl}^ 
(And he has so instructed me) that sin 
Like yours — and this poor gentleman's who's in 

For bad advice to you — comes rather high ; 
But since, apparently, you both begin 

To feel some pious promptings to the right, 

And fain would turn your faces to the light, 
Eternity seems all too long a term. 

So 'tis commuted to one-half. I'm quite 

Prepared, when that expires, to free the worm 

And quench the fire." And, civilly retreating, 

Pie left them holding their protracted meeting. 



l6 BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 



A LIFTED FINGER 



[The Chronicle did a great public service in whipping- 



and his fellow-rascals out of office. — M. H. de Young's News- 
paper. ] 

WHAT ! you whip rascals '^—you, whose gutter 
blood 
Bears, in its dark, dishonorable flood, 
Enough of prison-birds' prolific germs 
To serve a whole eternity of terms ? 
You, for whose back the rods and cudgels strove 
Ere yet the ax had hewn them from the grove ? 
You, the De Young whose splendor bright and brave 
Is phosphorescence from another's grave — 
Till now unknown, by any chance or luck, 
Even to the hearts at which you feebly struck ? 
Yo7i whip a rascal out of office ^^you 
Whose leadless weapon once ignobly blew 
Its smoke in six directions to assert 
Your lack of appetite for others' dirt ? 

Practice makes perfect: when for fame you thirst, 
Then whip a rascal. Whip a cripple first. 
Or, if for action you're less free than bold — 
Your palms both brimming with dishonest gold — 
Entrust the castigation that you've planned, 
As once before, to woman's idle hand. 
So in your spirit shall two pleasures join 
To vslake the sacred thirst for blood and coin. 



BLACK BEETLES LV AMBER 17 

Blood ? Souls have blood, even as the body hath, 
And, spilled, 'twill fertilize the field of wrath. 
L,o ! in a purple gorge of yonder hills. 
Where o'er a grave a bird its day-song stills, 
A woman's blood, through roses ever red. 
Mutely appeals for vengeance on your head. 
Slandered to death to serve a sordid end, 
She called you murderer and called me friend. 

Now, mark 3^ou, libeler, this course if you 

Dare to maintain, or rather to renew ; 

If one short 3^ear's immunity has made 

You blink again the perils of 3'our trade — 

The ghastly sequence of the maddened "knave,'* 

The hot encounter and the colder grave ; 

If the grim, dismal lesson 3'ou ignore 

While 5^et the stains are fresh upon your floor. 

And calml}^ march upon the fatal brink 

With eyes averted to 3'our trail of ink, 

Counting unkind the services of those 

Who pull, to hold 3^ou back, 3^our stupid nose, 

The da3^ for you to die is not so far, 

Or, at the least, to live the thing you are ! 

Pregnant with possibilities of crime. 
And full of felons for all coming time, 
Your blood's too precious to be lightly spilt 
In testimony to a venial guilt. 
Live to get whelpage and preserve a name 
No praise can sweeten and no lie unshame. 
Live to fulfill the vision that I see 
Down the dim vistas of the time to be : 



i8 BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 

A dream of clattering beaks and burning eyes 
Of hungry ravens glooming all the skies ; 
A dream of gleaming teeth and foetid breath 
Of jackals wrangling at the feast of death ; 
A dream of broken necks and swollen tongues — 
The whole world's gibbets loaded with De Youngs \ 
1881. 



TWO STATESMEN 

IN that fair city by the inland sea, 
Where Blaine unhived his Presidential bee, 
Frank Pixley's meeting with George Gorham sing, 
Celestial muse, and what events did spring 
From the encounter of those mighty sons 
Of thunder, and of slaughter, and of guns. 
Great Gorham first, his j^earning tooth to sate 
And give him stomach for the da3^'s debate, 
Entering a restaurant, with eager mien. 
Demands an ounce of bacon and a bean. 
The trembling waiter, by the statesman's eye 
Smitten with terror, hastens to comply ; 
Nor chairs nor tables can his speed retard, 
For famine's fixed and horrible regard 
He takes for menace. As he shaking flew, 
IvO ! the portentous Pixley heaved in view ! 
Before him j^awned invisible the cell, 
Unheard, behind, the warden's footsteps fell. 
Thrice in convention rising to his feet, 



BLACK BEETLES EV AMBER 19 

He thrice had been thrust back into his seat ; 
Thrice had protested, been reminded thrice 
The nation had no need of his advice. 
Balked of his will to set the people right, 
His soul was glooni}^ though liis hat was white. 
So fierce his mien, with provident accord 
The waiters swarmed him, thinking him a lord. 
He spurned them, roaring grandly to their chief? 
Give me (Fred. Crocker pays) a leg of beef I " 
His wandering eye's deluminating flame 
Fell upon Gorham and the crisis came ! 
For Pixley scowled and darkness filled the room 
Till Gorham' s flashing orbs dispelled the gloom. 
The patrons of the place, by fear dismayed. 
Sprang to the street and left their scores unpaid. 
So, when Jove thunders and his lightnings gleam 
To sour the milk and curdle, too, the cream, 
And storm-clouds gather on the shadowed hill. 
The ass forsakes his hay, the pig his swill. 
Hotly the heroes now engaged — their breath 
Came short and hard, as in the throes of death. 
They clenched their hands, their weapons bran- 
dished high, 
Cut, stabbed, and hewed, nor uttered any cry. 
But gnashed their teeth and struggled on ! In brief^ 
One ate his bacon, t'other one his beef. 



BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 



MATTER FOR GRATITUDE 

[Especially should we be thankful for having escaped the 
ravages of the yellow scourge by which our neighbors have 
been so sorely afflicted. — Governor Stoneinan''s Thanksgivifig 
Proclaniatioji -1 

BE pleased, O lyord, to take a people's thanks 
That Thine avenging sword has spared our 
ranks — 
That Thou hast parted from our lips the cup 
And forced our neighbors' lips to drink it up. 
Father of Mercies, with a heart contrite 
We thank Thee that Thou goest south to smite, 
And sparest San Francisco's loins, to crack 
Thy lash on Hermosillo's bleeding back — 
That o'er our homes Thine awful angel spread 
His wings in vain, and Guaymas weeps instead. 

We praise Thee, God, that Yellow Fever here 
His horrid banner has not dared to rear, 
Consumption's jurisdiction to contest. 
Her dagger deep in every second breast ! 
Catarrh and Asthma and Congestive Chill 
Attest Thy bounty and perform Thy wnll. 
These native messengers obey Thy call — 



niACK BEETLES IN AMBER 21 

They summon singly, but they summon all. 
Not, as in Mexico's impested clime. 
Can Yellow Jack commit recurring crime. 
We thank Thee that Thou killest all the time. 

Thy tender mercies, Father, never end : 

Upon all heads Thy blessings still descend. 

Though their forms vary. Here the sown seeds yield 

Abundant grain that whitens all the field — 

There the smit corn stands barren on the plain, 

Thrift reaps the straw and Famine gleans in vain. 

Here the fat priest to the contented king 

Points out the contrast and the people sing — 

There mothers eat their offspring. Well, at least 

Thou hast provided offspring for the feast. 

An earthquake here rolls harmless through the land, 

And Thou art good because the chimneys stand — 

There templed cities sink into the sea, 

And damp survivors, howling as the}^ flee, 

Skip to the hills and hold a celebration 

In honor of Thy wise discrimination. 

O God, forgive them all, from Stoneman down. 
Thy smile who construe and expound Thj- frown, 
And fall with saintl}^ grace upon their knees 
To render thanks when Thou dost only sneeze. 



22 BLACK BEETLES LN AMBER 



THREE KINDS OF A ROGUE 



SHARON, ambitious of immortal shame, 
Fame's dead-wall daubed with his illustrious 
name — ■ 
Served in the Senate, for our sins, his time, 
Each word a folly and each vote a crime ; 
lyaw for our governance well skilled to make 
By knowledge gained in study how to break ; 
Yet still by the presiding eye ignored, 
Which only sought him when too loud he snored. 
Auspicious thunder ! — when he woke to vote 
He stilled his own to cut his country's throat ; 
That rite performed, fell off again to sleep, 
While statesmen ages dead awoke to weep 1 
For sedentary service all unfit, 
By lying long disqualified to sit, 
Wasting below as he decayed aloft, 
His seat grown harder as his brain grew soft, 
He left the hall he could not bring awa}^. 
And grateful millions blessed the happy day i 
Whate'er contention in that hall is heard. 
His sovereign State has still the final word : 
For disputatious statesmen when they roar 
Startle the ancient echoes of his snore, 
Which from their dusty nooks expostulate 
And close with stormy clamor the debate. 



BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 

To low melodious thunders then they fade ; 
Their murmuring lullabies all ears invade ; 
Peace takes the Chair ; the portal Silence keeps ; 
No motion stirs the dark Lethean deeps — 
Washoe has spoken and the Senate sleeps. 

II 

Lo ! the new Sharon with a new intent, 
Making no laws, but keen to circumvent 
The laws of Nature (since he can't repeal) 
That break his failing body on the wheel. 
As Tantalus again and yet again 
The elusive wave endeavors to restrain 
To slake his awful thirst, so Sharon tries 
To purchase happiness that age denies ; 
Obtains the shadow, but the substance goes, 
And hugs the thorn, but cannot keep the rose ; 
For Dead Sea fruits bids prodigall}-, eats, 
And then, wnth tardy reformation — cheats. 
Alert his faculties as three score years 
And four score vices will permit, he nears — - 
Dicing with Death — the finish of the game, 
And curses still his candle's wasting flame, 
The narrow circle of whose feeble glow 
Dims and diminishes at every throw. 
Moments his losses, pleasures are his gains, 
Which even in his grasp revert to pains. 
The joy of grasping them alone remains. 

Ill 

Ring up the curtain and the play protract I 
Behold our Sharon in his last mad act. 



24 BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 

With man long warring, quarreling with God, 

He crouches now beneath a v/oman's rod 

Predestined for his back while yet it lay 

Closed in an acorn which, one luckless da}^ 

He stole, unconscious of its foetal twig, 

From the scant garner of a sightless pig. 

With bleeding shoulders pitilessly scored, 

He bawls more lustily than once he snored„ 

The sympathetic Comstocks droop to hear, 

And Carson river sheds a viscous tear, 

Which sturdy tumble- bugs assail amain, 

With ready thrift, and urge along the plain. 

The jackass rabbit sorrows as he lopes ; 

The sage-brush glooms along the mountain slopes ; 

In rising clouds the poignant alkali. 

Tearless itself, makes everybody cry. 

Washoe canaries on the Geiger Grade 

Subdue the singing of their cavalcade, 

And, wiping with their ears the tears unshed, 

Grieve for their family's unluck}^ head. 

Virginia City intermits her liade 

And well-clad strangers walk her streets unfla3''ed. 

Nay, all Nevada ceases work to weep 

And the recording angel goes to sleep. 

But in his dreams his goose-quill's creaking fount 

Augments the debits in the long account. 

And still the continents and oceans ring 

With royal torments of the Silver King ! 

Incessant bellowings fill all the earth. 

Mingled with inextinguishable mirth. 

He roars, men laugh, Nevadans weep, beasts howl, 

Plash the affrighted fish, and shriek the fowl ! 



BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER ^5 

With monstrous din their blended thunders rise, 

Peal upon peal, and brawl along the skies. 

Startle in hell the Sharons as they groan, 

And shake the splendors of the great white throne ! 

Still roaring outward through the vast profound, 

The spreading circles of receding sound 

Pursue each other in a failing race 

To the cold confines of eternal space ; 

There break and die along that awful shore 

Which God's own eyes have never dared explore — 

Dark, fearful, formless, nameless evermore ! 

Look to the west \ Against yon steely sky 

Lone Mountain rears its holy cross on high. 

About its base the meek-faced dead are laid 

To share the benediction of its shade. 

With crossed white hands, shut eyes and formal feet. 

Their nights are innocent, their daj's discreet. 

Sharon, some years, perchance, remain of life — 

Of vice and ^reed, ulgarity and strife; 

And then — God speed the day if such His will — 

You'll lie among the dead you helped to kill, 

And be in good society at last. 

Your purse unsilvered and your face unbrassed. 



26 BLACK BEETLES LN AMBER 



A MAN 

PENNOYER, Governor of Oregon, 
Casting to South his eye across the bourne 
Of his dominion (where the Pahiiiped, 
With leathers 'twixt his toes, paddles his marsh, 
Amphibious) saw a rising cloud of hats, 
And heard a faint, far sound of distant cheers 
Below the swell of the horizon. " Lo," 
Cried one, " the President ! the President ! " 
All footed webwise then took up the word — 
The hill tribes and the tribes lacustrine and 
The folk riparian and littoral, 

Cried with one voice: " The President ! He comes I'* 
And some there were w^ho flung their headgear up 
In emulation of the Southern mob ; 
While some, more soberly disposed, stood still 
And silently had fits ; and others made 
vSuch reverent genuflexions as they could, 
Having that climate in their bones. Then spake 
The Court Dunce, humbly, as became him: "Sire, 
If thou, as heretofore thou hast, wilt deign 
To reap advantage of a fool's advice 
By action ordered after nature's way, 
As in thy people manifest (for still 
Stupidity's the only wisdom) thou 
V/ilt get thee straight unto to the border land 



BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 27 

To mark the President's approach with such 
Due, decent courtes}' as it shall seem 
We have in custom the best warrant for. ' ' 

Pennoj^er, Governor of Oregon, 

Eyeing the storm of hats which darkened all 

The Southern sk}^, and hearing far hurrahs 

Of an exulting people, answered not. 

Then some there were who fell upon their knees, 

And some upon their Governor, and sought 

Each in his way^ by blandishment or force. 

To gain his action to their end. " Behold," 

The}^ said, '• thy brother Governor to South 

Met him even at the gateway of his realm, 

Crook-kneed, magnetic-handed and agrin, 

Backed like a rainbow — all things done in form 

Of due observance and respect. Shall we 

Alone of all his servitors refuse 

Swift welcome to our master and our lord ? " 

Penno3^er, Governor of Oregon, 

Answered them not, but turned his back to them 

And as if speaking to himself, the while 

He started to retire, said : " He be damned ! " 

To that High Place o'er Portland's central block, 

Where the Recording Angel stands to view 

The sinning world, nor thinks to move his feet 

Aside and look below, came flocking up 

Inferior angels, all aghast, and cried: 

*' Penno3^er, Governor of Oregon, 

Has said, O what an awful word ! — too bad 



28 BLACK BEETLES IN ABIBER 

To be by us repeated ! " " Yes, I know," 
Said the superior bird — " I heard it too, 
And have already booked it. Pra}^ observe." 
Splitting the giant tome, whose covers fell 
Apart, o'ershadowing to right and left 
The Eastern and the Western world, he showed 
The newly written entr}^ black and big, 
Upon the credit side of thine account, 
Pennoyer, Governor of Oregon. 



YE FOB TO CATHAYE 

O never an oatlie sweares he, 

And never a pig-taile jerkes ; 

With a brick-batte he ne lurkes 
For to buste y^ crust, perdie, 
Of y^ man from over sea, 

A-s^mging as he werkes. 
For he knows ful well, y^ youth, 

A tricke of exceeding worth : 
And he plans withouten ruth 

A confiao:ration's birth ! 



SAMUEL SHORTRIDGE 

Like a worn mother he attempts in vain 
To still the unruly Crier of his brain: 
The more he rocks the cradle of his chin 
The more uproarious grows the brat within. 



BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 29 



SURPRISED 



44/^ SON of mine age, these eyes lose their fire : 
^^ Be eyes, I praj^, to thy dying sire." 



*' O father, fear not, for mine e3''es are bright — ■ 
I read through a millstone at dead of night." 

*' My son, O tell me, who are those men, 
Rushing like pigs to the feeding-pen ? " 

** Welcomers they of a statesman grand. 

They'll shake, and then they will pocket; his hand." 

*' Sagacious youth with the wondrous eye, 

They seem to throw up their headgear. Why ? " 

*' Because they've thrown up their hands until, O, 
They're so tired ! — and dinners they've none to 
throw." 

*' My son, my son, though dull are mine ears, 
I hear a great sound like the people's cheers." 

*' He's thanking them, father, with tears in his ej^es, 
For giving him lately that fine surprise." 

** My memory fails as I near mine end ; 

How did they astonish their grateful friend ? ** 



30 BLACK BEETLES LN AMBER 

** By letting him bu}-, like apples or oats, 

With that which has made him so good, the votes 
Which make him so wise and grand and great. 
Now, father, please die, for 'tis growing late." 



I 



POSTERITY'S AWARD 

^D long been dead, but I returned to earth. 
Some small affairs posterity was making 
A mess of, and I came to see that worth 

Received its dues. I'd hardly finished waking, 
The grave-mould still upon me, when my eye 
Perceived a statue standing straight and high. 

'Twas a colossal figure — bronze and gold — 
Nobly designed, in attitude commanding. 

A toga from its shoulders, fold on fold. 

Fell to the pedestal on which 'twas standing. 

Nobility it had and splendid grace. 

And all it should have had — except a face ! 

It showed no features : not a trace nor sign 
Of any eyes or nose could be detected — 

On the smooth oval of its front no line 

Where sites for mouths are commonly selected. 

All blank and blind its faulty head it reared. 

Let this be said : 'twas generously eared. 

Seeing these things, I straight began to guess 
For whom this mighty image was intended. 



BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 31 

** The head," I cried, " is Upton's, and the dress 

Is Parson Bartlett's own. True, his cloak ended 
Fkish with his lowest vertebra, but no 
Sane sculptor ever made a toga so. 

Then on the pedestal these words I read : 
*' Erected Eighteen Hundred Ninety-sevoi " 
(Saint Christofer ! how fast the time had sped ! 
Of course it naturally does in Heaven) 

** To — " (here a blank space for the name began) 

" The Nineteenth Century' s Great Foremost Man .-"' 

** Completed,'' the inscription ended, ''in 

The Year Three Thousand'' — which was just arriving. 

By Jove! thought I, 'twould make the founders grin 
To learn whose fame so long has been surviving — 

To read the name posterity will place 

In that blank void, and view the finished face. 

Even as I gazed, the year Three Thousand came, 
And then by acclamation all the people 

Decreed whose was our century's best fame ; 
Then scaffolded the statue like a steeple, 

To make the likeness ; and the name was sunk 

Deep in the pedestal's metallic trunk. 

Whose was it ? Gentle reader, pray excuse 
The seeming rudeness, but I can't consent to 

Be so forehanded wnth important news. 

'Twas neither yours nor mine — let that content yoUa 

If not, the name I must surrender, which. 

Upon a dead man's word, was George K. Fitch I 



32 BLACK BEETLES LN AMBER 



AN ART CRITIC 

IRA P. RANKIN, you've a nasal name — 
I'll sound it through "the speaking-trump of 
fame," 
And wondering nations, hearing from afar 
The brazen twang of its resounding jar, 
Shall say : ** These bards are an uncommon class— 
They blow their noses with a tube of brass ! " 
Rankin ! ye gods! if Influenza pick 
Our names at christening, and such names stick, 
Let's all be born when summer suns withstand 
Her prevalence and chase her from the land, 
And healing breezes generously help 
To shield from death each ailing human whelp ! 
"What's in a name?" There's much at least in 
3^ours 
That the pained ear unwillingly endures, 
And much to make the suffering soul, I fear, 
Envy the lesser anguish of the ear. 

So you object to Cytherea ! Do, 
The picture was not painted, sir, for you ! 
Your mind to gratify and taste address, 
The masking dove had been a dove the less. 
Provincial censor ! all untaught in art, 
With mind indecent and indecent heart, 
Do you not know — nay, why should I explain ? 
Instruction, argument alike w^ere vain — 
I'll show you reasons when you show me brain 



BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 33 



THE SPIRIT OF A SPONGE 

I DREAMED one night that Stephen Massett died, 
And for admission up at Heaven appHed. 
" Who are you ? " asked St. Peter. Massett said : 
" Jeems Pipes, of Pipesville. " Peter bowed his head, 
Opened the gates and said : ** I'm glad to know you, 
And wish we'd something better, sir, to show you." 
" Don't mention it," said Stephen, looking bland, 
And was about to enter, hat in hand, 
When from a cloud below such fumes arose 
As tickled tenderly his conscious nose. 
He paused, replaced his hat upon his head, 
Turned back and to the saintly warden said, 
O'er his already sprouting wings : "I swear 
I smell some broiling going on down there ! " 
So Massett's paunch, attracted by the smell, 
Followed his nose and found a place in Hell. 



ORNITHANTHROPOS 

'Let John P. Irish rise ! " the edict rang 
As when Creation into being sprang ! 
Nature, not clearly understanding, tried 
To make a bird that on the air could ride. 
But naught could baffle the creative plan- 
Despite her efforts 'twas almost a man. 
Yet he had risen — to the bird a twin — 
Had she but fixed a wing upon his chin. 



34 BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 



TO E. S. SAlvOMON 

Wlio in a Memorial Day oration protested bitterly against 
decorating the graves of Confederate dead. 

WHAT ! Salomon ! such words from you. 
Who call yourself a soldier ? Well, 
The Southern brother where he fell 
Slept all your base oration through. 

Alike to him — he cannot know 

Your praise or blame : as little harm 
Your tongue can do him as 3'our arm 

A quarter-century ago. 

The brave respect the brave. The brave 
Respect the dead ; hntjozt — you draw 
That ancient blade, the ass's jaw. 

And shake it o'er a hero's grave. 

Are you not he who makes to-day 
A merchandise of old renown 
Which he persuades this eas}^ town 

He won in battle far away ? 

Nay, those the fallen who revile 

Have ne'er before the living stood 
And stoutly made their battle good 

And greeted danger with a smile. 



BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 35 

What if the dead whom still you hate 

Were wrong ? Are you so surely right ? 
We know the issue of the fight — 

The sword is but an advocate. 

Men live and die, and other men 
Arise with knowledges diverse : 
What seemed a blessing seems a curse, 

And Now is still at odds with Then. 

The years go on, the old comes back 
To mock the new — beneath the sun 
Is nothing new ; ideas run 

Recurrent in an endless track. 

What most we censure, men as wise 

Have reverently practiced ; nor 

Will future wisdom fail to war 
On principles we dearly prize. 

We do not know — we can but deem, 
And he is loj^alest and best 
Who takes the light full on his breast 

And follows it throughout the dream. 

The broken light, the shadows wide — - 
Behold the battle-field displa^^ed ! 
God save the vanquished from the blade, 

The victor from the victor's pride ! 

If, Salomon, the blessed dew 

That falls upon the Blue and Gray 
Is powerless to wash away 

The sin of differing from you, 



36 BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 

Remember how the flood of years 
Has rolled across the erring slain ; 
Remember, too, the cleansing rain 

Of widows' and of orphans' tears 

The dead are dead — let that atone : 

And though with equal hand we strew 
The blooms on saint and sinner too, 

Yet God will know to choose his own. 

The wretch, whate'er his life and lot, 
Who does not love the harmless dead 
With all his heart and all his head — 

May God forgive him — / shall not. 

When, Salomon, 3^ou come to quaff 
The Darker Cup with meeker face, 
I, loving you. at last, shall trace 

Upon your tomb this epitaph : 

*' Draw near, y^ generous and brave — 

Kneel round this monument and weep ; 
It covers one who tried to keep 
A flower from a dead man's grave." 



DENNIS KEARNEY 

Your influence, my friend, has gathered head — ■ 
To east and west its tides encroaching spread. 
There'll be, on all God's fool-stool, when they meet, 
No clean spot left for God to set His feet. 



BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER Z7 



^ FINIS ^TERNITATIS 

STROLLING at sunset in my native land, 
With fruits and flowers thick on either hand, 
I crossed a Shadow flung athwart my w^ay, 
Emerging on a waste of rock and sand. 

*' The apples all are gone from here," I said, 
" The roses perished and their spirits fled. 

I will go back. " A voice cried out : " The man 
Is risen who eternally was dead ! " 

I turned and saw an angel standing there, 
Newly descended from the heights of air. 

Sweet-eyed compassion filled his face, his hands 
A naked sword and golden trumpet bare. 

** Nay, 'twas not death, the shadow that I crossed," 
I said. " Its chill was but a touch of frost. 

It made me gasp, but quickl}' I came through, 
With breath recovered ere it scarce was lost." 

'Twas the same land ! Remembered mountains thrust 
Grayed heads asky, and every dragging gust, 
In ashen valle^-s where my sons had reaped, 
Stirred in familiar river-beds the dust. 



38 BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 

Some heights, where once the traveler was shown 
The youngest and the proudest city known, 
Lifted smooth ridges in the steely light — 
Bleak, desolate acclivities of stone. 

Where I had worshiped at my father's tomb, 
Within a massive temple's awful gloom, 

A jackal slunk along the naked rock, * 

Affrighted by some prescience of doom. 

Man's vestiges were nowhere to be found, 
Save one brass mausoleum on a mound 

(I knew it well) spared by the artist Time 
To emphasize the desolation round. 

Into the stagnant sea the sullen sun 
Sank behind bars of crimson, one by one. 
" Eternit3''s at hand ! " I cried aloud. 
" Eternity,' ' the angel said, " is done. 

" For man is ages dead in every zone ; 
The angels all are dead but I alone ; 

The devils, too, are cold enough at last, 
And God lies dead before the great white throne ! 

*' 'Tis foreordained that 1 bestride the shore 
When all are gone (as Gabriel did before. 

When I had throttled the last man alive) 
And swear Eternity shall be no more." 

* ' O Azrael — O Prince of Death, declare 

Why conquered I the grave ? " I cried. "What rare, 
Conspicuous virtues won this boon for me? " 
*' You've been revived, " he said, " to hear me swear." 



BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 39 

" Then let me creep again beneath the grass, 
And knock thou at yon pompous tomb of brass. 

If ears are what you want, Charles Crocker' s there — 
Betwixt the greatest ears, the greatest ass." 

He rapped, and while the hollow echoes rang, 
Out at the door a curst hyena sprang 

And fled ! Said Azrael: " His soul's escaped," 
And closed the brazen portal with a bang. 



THE VETERAN 

JOHN JACKSON, once a soldier bold, 
Hath still a martial feeling ; 
So, when he sees a foe, behold ! 
He charges him — with stealing. 

He cares not how much ground to-day 
He gives for men to doubt him ; 

He's used to giving ground, they say, 
Who lately fought with — out him. 

When, for the battle to be won, 

His gallantry was needed, 
They say each time a loaded gun 

Went off — so, likewise, he did. 

And when discharged (for war's a sport 

So hot he had to leave it) 
He made a very loud report. 

But no one did believe it. 



40 BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 



AN "EXHIBIT '' 

r\ OLDKNSON hanged ! Well, Heaven forbid 
^^ That I should smile above him : 
Though truth to tell, I never did 
Exactly love him. 

It can't be wrong, though, to rejoice 

That his unpleasing capers 
Are ended. Silent is his voice 
In all the papers. 

No longer he's a show : no more. 

Bear-like, his den he's walking. 
No longer can he hold the floor 
When I'd be talking. 

The laws that govern jails are bad 

If such displays are lawful. 
The fate of the assassin's sad, 
But ours is awful ! 

What ! shall a wretch condemned to die 

In shame upon the gibbet 
Be set before the public eye 
As an "exhibit"?— 



BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER a7 

His looks, his actions noted down, 

His words if light or solemn, 
And all this hawked about the town — 
So much a column ? 

The press, of course, will publish news 

However it may get it ; 
But blast the sheriff who'll abuse 
His powers to let it ! 

Nay, this is not ingratitude ; 

I'm no reporter, truly, 
Nor yet an editor. I'm rud^ 
Because unruly — 

Because I burn with shame and rage 

Beyond my power of telling 
To see assassins in a cage 
And keepers yelling. 

Walk up ! Walk up ! " the showman cries : 
" Observe the lion's poses, 
His stormy mane, his glooming eyes, 
His — hold 3^our noses ! ' ' 

How long, O Lord, shall Law and Right 

Be mocked for gain or glory, 
And angels weep as the}^ recite 
The shameful story ? 



42 BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 



THE TRANSMIGRATIONS OF A SOUL 

WHAT ! Pixley, must I hear you call the roll 
Of all the vices that infest your soul ? 
Was't not enough that lately you did bawl 
Your money-worship in the ears of all ? * 
Still must you crack your brazen cheek to tell 
That though a miser you're a sot as well ? 
Still must I hear how low your taste has sunk — 
From getting money down to getting drunk ? f 

Who worships mone}^ damning all beside, 
And shows his callous knees with pious pride, 
Speaks with half-knowledge, for no man e'er scorns 
His own possessions, be they coins or corns. 
You've money, neighbor ; had you gentle birth 
You'd know, as now you never can, its worth. 

You've money ; learning is beyond your scope, 

Deaf to your envy, stubborn to your hope. 

But if upon your undeserving head 

Science and letters had their glory shed ; 

If in the cavern of your skull the light 

Of knowledge shone where now eternal night 

Breeds the blind, poddy, vapor-fatted naughts 

Of cerebration that you think are thoughts — ■ 

Black bats in cold and dismal corners hung 

That squeak and gibber when 3^ou move your tongue 

You would not write, in Avarice's defense, 



BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 43 

A senseless eulog}^ on lack of sense, 
Nor show your eagerness to sacrifice 
All noble virtues to one loathsome vice, 

You'v^e money ; if you'd manners too you'd shame 

To boast your weakness or your baseness name. 

Appraise the things you have, but measure not 

The things denied to your unhappy lot. 

He values manners lighter than a cork 

Who combs his beard at table with a fork. 

Hare to seek sin and tortoise to forsake, 

The laws of taste condemn you to the stake 

To expiate, where all the world may see, 

The crime of growing old disgracefully. 

Religion, learning, birth and manners, too, 
All that distinguishes a man from you, 
Pray damn at will : all shining virtues gain 
An added luster from a rogue's disdain. 
But spare the young that proselyting sin, 
A toper's apotheosis of gin. 
If not our young, at least our pigs may claim 
Exemption from the spectacle of shame ! 

Are you not he who lately out of shape 

Blew a brass trumpet to denounce the grape ? — 

Who led the brave teetotalers afield 

And slew your leader underneath your shield ? — 

Swore that no man should drink unless he flung 

Himself across your body at the bung ? 

Who vowed if you'd the power you would fine 

The Son of God for making water wine ? 



44 BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 

All trails to odium you tread and boast, 
Yourself enamored of the dirtiest most. 
One day to be a miser you aspire, 
The next to wallow drunken in the mire ; 
The third, lo ! you're a meritorious liar ! § 
Pray, in the catalogue of all your graces, 
Have theft and cowardice no honored places ? 

Yield thee, great Satan — here's a rival name 

With all thy vices and but half thy shame ! 

Quick to the letter of the precept, quick 

To the example of the elder Nick ; 

With as great talent as was e'er applied 

To fool a teacher and to fog a guide ; 

With slack allegiance and boundless greed, 

To paunch the profit of a traitor deed. 

He aims to make thy glory all his own. 

And crowd his master from the infernal throne ! 

* We are not writing this paragraph for any other purpose 
than to protest against this never ending cant, affectation, and 
hypocrisy about money. It is one of the best things in this 
world — better than religion, or good birth, or learning, or good 
manners. — The Argonaut. 

t Now, it just occurs to us that some of our temperance 
friends will take issue with us, and say that this is bad doctrine, 
and that it is un^entlemanly to get drunk under any circum- 
stances or under any possible conditions. We do not think so. 
— The same. 

\ The man or woman who, for the sake of benefiting others, 
protecting them in their lives, property, or reputation, sparing 
their feelings, contributing to their enjoyment, or increasing 
their pleasures, will tell a lie, deserves to be rewarded. — The 
same. 



BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 45 



AN ACTOR 

SOME one ( 'tis liardl}^ new) has oddly said 
The color of a trumpet's blare is red ; 
And Joseph Emmett thinks the crimson shame 
On woman's cheek a trumpet-note of fame. 
The more the red storm rises round her nose — 
The more her eyes averted seek her toes, 
He fancies all the louder he can hear 
The tube resounding in his spacious ear, 
And, all his varied talents to exert, 
Darkens his dullness to display his dirt. 
And when the gallery's indecent crowd, 
And gentlemen below, with hisses loud, 
In hot contention (these his art to crown, 
And those his naked nastiness to drown) 
Make such a din that cheeks erewhile aflame 
Grow white and in their fear forget their shame, 
With impudence imperial, sublime, 
Unmoved, the patient actor bides his time. 
Till storm and counter-storm are both allayed, 
Like donkeys, each by t'other one outbrayed. 
When all the place is silent as a mouse 
One slow, suggestive gesture clears the house ! 



46 BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 



FAMINE'S REALM 

TO him in whom the love of Nature has 
Imperfectly supplanted the desire 
And dread necessity of food, your shore, 
Fair Oakland, is a terror. Over all 
Your sunny level, from Tamaletown 
To where the Pestuary's fragrant slime, 
With dead dogs studded, bears its ailing fleet, 
Broods the still menace of starvation. Bones 
Of men and women bleach along the wa3^s 
And pampered vultures sleep upon the trees. 
It is a land of death, and Famine there 
Holds sovereignty ; though some there be her sway 
Who challenge, and intrenched in larders live, 
Drawing their sustentation from abroad. 
But woe to him, the stranger I He shall die 
As die the early righteous in the bud 
And promise of their prime. He, venturesome 
To penetrate the wilds rectangular 
Of grass-grown ways luxuriant of blooms, 
Frequented of the bee and of the blithe, 
Bold squirrel, strays with heedless feet afar 
From human habitation and is lost 
In mid- Broadway. There hunger seizes him. 
And (careless man! deeming God's providence 
Extends so far) he has not wherewithal 
To bate its urgency. Then, lo ! appears 



BLACK BEETLES LN AMBER 47 

A mealery — a restaurant — a place 
Where poison battles famine, and the two, 
Like fish-hawks warring in the upper sk}- 
For that which one has taken from the deep. 
Manage between them to dispatch the pre3^ 
He enters and leaves hope behind. There ends 
His history. Anon his bones, clean-picked 
By buzzards (with the bones himself had picked, 
Incautious) line the highw^a}^ O, my friends, 
Of all felonious and deadly wase 
Devices of the Enemy of Souls, 
Planted along the ways of life to snare 
Man's mortal and immortal part alike, 
The Oakland restaurant is chief. It lives 
That man may die. It flourishes that life 
May wither. Its foundation stones repose 
On human hearts and hopes. I've seen in it 
Crabs stewed in milk and salad offered up 
With dressing so unholily compound 
That it included flour and sugar ! Yea, 
I've eaten dog there ! — dog, as I'm a man, 
Dog seethed in sewage of the town ! No more — 
Thy hand, Dyspepsia, assumes the pen 
And scrawls a tortured ' ' Finis ' ' on the page. 



48 BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 



THE MACKAIAD 

MACKAY'S hot wrath to Bonynge, direful spring 
Of blows unnumbered, heavenly goddess, sing — 
That wrath which hurled to Hellman's ofi&ce floor 
Two heroes, mutually smeared with gore, 
Whose hair in handfuls marked the dire debate, 
And riven coat-tails testified their hate. 
Sing, muse, what first their indignation fired, 
What words augmented it, by whom inspired. 

First, the great Bonynge comes upon the scene 

And asks the favor of the British Queen. 

Suppliant he stands and urges all his claim : 

His wealth, his portly person and his name. 

His habitation in the setting sun, 

As child of nature; and his suit he won. 

No more the Sovereign, wearied w^th his plea, 

From slumber's chain her faculties can free. 

lyow and more low the royal eyelids creep. 

She gives the assenting nod and falls asleep. 

Straightway the Bonynges all invade the Court 

And telegraph the news to every port. 

Beneath the seas, red-hot, the tidings fly, 

The cables crinkle and the fishes fry ! 

The world, awaking like a startled bat. 

Exclaims : "A Bonynge ? What the devil's that ? '* 

Mackay, meanwhile, to envy all attent, 

Untaught to spare, unable to relent, 



Jif.ACk' nEETLES I.\t .UfJlER 49 

Walks ill our town on needles and on pins, 
And in a mean, revengeful spirit — grins ! 

Sing, muse, what next to break the peace occurred — 

What act uncivil, what unfriendly word ? 

The god of Bosh ascending from his pool, 

Where since creation he has played the fool, 

Clove the blue slush, as other gods the sky, 

And, waiting but a moment's space to dr}^ 

Touched Bonynge with his finger-tip. *' O son, " 

He said, ' ' alike of nature and a gun, 

Knowest not Mackay's insufferable sin? 

Hast thou not heard that he doth stand and grin ? 

Arise ! assert thy manhood, and attest 

The uncommercial spirit in thy breast. 

Avenge thine honor, for by Jove I swear 

Thou shalt not else be my peculiar care ! ' ' 

He spake, and ere his worshiper could kneel 

Had dived into his slush pool, head and heel. 

Full of the god and to revenges nerved. 

And conscious of a will that never swerved, 

Bonynge set sail : the world beyond the wave 

As gladly took him as the other gave. 

New York received him, but a .shudder ran 

Through all the western coast, which knew the man ; 

And science said that the seismic action 

Was owing to an asteroid's impaction. 

O goddess, sing what BoiiA-nge next essayed. 
Did he unscabbard the avenging blade, 
The long spear brandish and porrect the shield^ 
Havoc the town and devastat?. the field ? 



50 BLACK BEETLES LN AMBER 

His sacred thirst for blood did lie allay 

By halving the unfortunate Mack ay ? 

Small were the profit and the jo}^ to him 

To hew a base-born person, limb from limb. 

Let vulgar souls to low revenge incline, 

That of diviner spirits is divine. 

Bonynge at noonday stood in public places 

And (with regard to the Macka}- s) made faces ! 

Before those formidable frowns and scowls 

The dogs fled, tail-tucked, with affrighted howls, 

And horses, terrified, with flying feet 

O'erthrew the apple-stands along the street, 

Involving the metropolis in vast 

Financial ruin ! Man himself, aghast, 

Retreated east and west and north and south 

Before the menace of that twisted mouth, 

Till Jove, in answer to their prayers, sent Night 

To veil the dreadful visage from their sight ! 

Such were the causes of the horrid strife — 
The mother-wrongs which nourished it to life. 
O, for a quill from an archangel's wing ! 
O, for a voice that's adequate to sing 
The splendor and the terror of the fray. 
The scattered hair, the coat-tails all astray, 
The parted collars and the gouts of gore 
Reeking and smoking on the banker's floor, 
The interlocking limbs, embraces dire, 
Revolving bodies and deranged attire ! 

Vain, vain the trial : 'tis vouchsafed to none 
To sing two millionaires rolled into one ! 



BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 51 

M}^ hand and pen their offices refuse, 

And hoarse and hoarser grows the weary muse. 

Alone remains, to tell of the event, 

Abandoned, lost and variously rent. 

The Bonynge nethermost habiliment. 



A SONG IN PRAISK 

HAIL, blessed Blunder ! golden idol, hail !- 
Claj^-footed deity of all who fail. 
Celestial image, let thy glory shine, 
Th}^ feet concealing, but a lamp to mine. 
Let me, at seasons opportune and fit, 
B}^ turns adore thee and by turns commit. 
In thy high service let me ever be 
(Yet never serve thee as my critics me) 
Happy and fallible, content to feel 
I blunder chiefly when to thee I kneel. 
But best felicity is his thy praise 
Who litters unaware in works and waj^s — 
Who laborare est or are proves, 
And feels thy suasion wheresoe'er he moves, 
Serving thy purpose, not thine altar, still, 
And working, for he thinks it his, thy will. 
If such a life with blessings be not fraught, 
I env}' Peter Robertson for naught. 



52 BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 



A POET'S FATHER 

WELCKER, I'm told, can boast a father great 
And honored in the service of the State. 
Public Instruction all his mind employs — 
He guides its methods and its wage enjoys. 
Prime Pedagogue, imperious and grand. 
He waves his ferule o'er a studious land 
Where humming youth, intent upon the page, 
Thirsting for knowledge with a noble rage, . 
Drink dry the whole Pierian spring and ask 
To slake their fervor at his private flask. 
Arrested by the terror of his frown, 
The vaulting spit-ball drops untimely down ; 
The fly impaled on the tormenting pin 
Stills in his awful glance its dizzy din ; 
Beneath that stern regard the chewing-gum 
Which writhed and squeaked between the teeth is 

dumb ; 
Obedient to his will the dunce-cap flies 
To perch upon the brows of the unwise ; 
The supple switch forsakes the parent wood 
To settle where 'twill do the greatest good. 
Puissant still, as when of old it strove 
With Solomon for spitting on the stove 
lycarned Professor, variously great, 
Guide, guardian, instructor of the State — 
Quick to discern and zealous to correct 



BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 

The faults which mar the public intellect 
From where of Siskiyou the northern bound 
Is frozen eternal to the sunless ground 
To where in San Diego's torrid clime 
The swarthy Greaser swelters in his grime- 
Beneath your stupid nose can you not see 
The dunce whom once you dandled on your knee ? 
O mighty master of a thousand schools, 
Stop teaching wisdom, or stop breeding fools 



53 



A COWARD 

WHEN Pickering, distressed by an ** attack," 
Has the strange insolence to answer back 
He hides behind a name that is a lie, 
And out of shadow falters his repl}^ 
God knows him, though — identified alike 
By hardihood to rise and fear to strike. 
And fitly to rebuke his sins decrees. 
That, hide from others with what care he please, 
Night sha'n't be black enough nor earth so wide 
That from himself himself can ever hide ! 
Hard fate indeed to feel at every breath 
His burden of identity till death ! — 
No moment's respite from the immortal load. 
To think himself a serpent or a toad. 
Or dream, with a divine, ecstatic glow. 
He's long been dead and canonized a crow ! 



54 BLACK BEETLES AV AMBER 



TO MY LIARS 

ATTEND, mine enemies of all degrees, 
- From sandlot orators and sandlot fleas 
To fallen gentlemen and rising louts 
Who babble slander at your drinking bouts, 
And, filled with unfamiliar wine, begin 
Lies drowned, ere born, in more congenial gin. 
But most attend, ye persons of the press 
Who live (though why, yourselves alone can guess) 
In hope deferred, ambitious still to shine 
By hating me at half a cent a line — 
Like drones among the bees of brighter wing, 
Sunless to shine and impotent to sting. 
To estimate in easy verse I'll try 
The controversial value of a lie. 
So lend your ears — God knows you have enough ! — 
I mean to teach, and if I can't I'll cuff. 

A lie is wicked, so the priests declare ; 

But that to us is neither here nor there. 

'Tis worse than wicked, it is vulgar too ; 

N'importe — with that we've nothing here to do. 

If 'twere artistic I would lie till death. 

And shape a falsehood with my latest breath. 

Parrhasius never more did pity lack, 

The while his model writhed upon the rack^ 

Than I for my collaborator's pain, 



BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 55 

Who, stabbed with fibs again and 3^et again, 
Would vainly seek to move my stubborn heart 
If slander were, and wit w^ere not, an art. 
The ill-bred and illiterate can lie 
As fast as you, and faster far than I. 
Shall I compete, then, in a strife accurst 
Where Allen Forman is an easy first, 
And where the second prize is rightly flung 
To Charley Shortridge or to Mike de Young ? 

In mental combat but a single end 
Inspires the formidable to contend. 
Not by the raw recruit's ambition fired. 
By whom foul blows, though harmless, are admired ; 
Not by the coward's zeal, who, on his knee 
Behind the bole of his protecting tree, 
So curves his musket that the bark it fits. 
And, firing, blows the weapon into bits ; 
But with the noble aim of one whose heart 
Values his foeman for he loves his art 
The veteran debater moves afield. 
Untaught to libel as untaught to yield. 
Dear foeman mine, I've but this end in view- 
That to prevent which most 3"0U wish to do. 
What, then, are you most eager to be at? 
To hate me? Nay, I'll help you, sir, at that. 
This only passion does your soul inspire : 
You wish to scorn me. Well, 5'ou shall admire. 

'Tis not enough my neighbors that you school 

In the belief that I'm a rogue or fool ; 

That small advantage you would gladly trade 



56 BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 

For what one moment would jj'(??^r5^/y" persuade. 

Write, then, your largest and your longest lie : 

Yoic sha'n't believe it, howsoe'er you try. 

No falsehood you can tell, no evil do, 

Shall turn me from the truth to injure j^ou. 

So all your war is barren of effect; 

I find my victory in your respect. 

What profit have 3^ou if the world 3^ou set 

Against me ? For the world will soon forget 

It thought me this or that ; but I'll retain 

A vivid picture of your moral stain. 

And cherish till m}^ memor}^ expire 

The sweet, soft consciousness that you're a liar 

Is it yoiir triumph, then, to prove that you 

Will do the thing that I would scorn to do ? 

God grant that I forever be exempt 

From such advantage as my foe's contempt. 



"'PHIL" CRIMMINS 

Still as he climbed into the public view 

His charms of person more apparent grew. 

Till the pleased world that watched his airy grace 

Saw nothing of him but his nether lace — 

Forgot his follies with his head's retreat. 

And blessed his virtues as it viewed their seat. 



BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 57 



CODEX HONORIS 

JACOB JACOBS, of Oakland, he swore : 
" Dat Solomon Martin — I'll haf his gore ! " 
Solomon Martin, of Oakland, he said : 

" Of Shacob Shacobs der bleed I vill shed ! ' ' 
So they met, with seconds and surgeon at call, 
And fought with pistol and powder and — all 
Was done in good faith, — as before I said, 
They fought with pistol and powder and — shed 
Tears, O my friends, for each other they marred 
Fighting with pistol and powder and — lard ! 
For the lead had been stolen away, every trace, 
And Christian hog-product supplied its place. 
Then the shade of Moses indignant arose : 

" Quvicker dan lighdnings go vosh yer glose ! " 
Jacob Jacobs, of Oakland, they saj-, 
Applied for a pension the following day. 
Solomon Martin, of Oakland, I hear, 
Will call himself Colonel for many a year. 



TO W. H. L. B. 

Refrain, dull orator, from speaking out, 
For silence deepens when you raise the shout ; 
But when 3'ou hold your tongue we hear, at least, 
Your noise in mastering that little beast. 



58 BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 



EMANCIPATION 

BEHOLD ! the days of miracle at last 
Return — if ever they were truly past i 
From sinful creditors' unholy greed 
The church called Calvary at last is freed— 
So called for there the Savior's crucified, 
Roberts and Carmany on either side. 

The circling contribution-box no more 

Provokes the nod and simulated snore ; 

No more the Lottery, no more the Fair, 

Lure the reluctant dollar from its lair, 

Nor Ladies' Lunches at a bit a bite 

Destroy the health 3'et spaie the appetite, 

While thrifty sisters o'er the cauldron stoop 

To serve their God with zeal, their friends with soup, 

And all the brethren mendicate the earth 

With viewless placards: " We've been ^c> from birth !" 

Sure of his wage, the pastor now^ can lend 
His whole attention to his latter end, 
Remarking with amartyr's prescient thrill 
The Hemp maturing on the cheerless Hill. 
The holy brethren, lifting pious palms, 
Pour out their gratitude in prayer and psalms. 
Chant De Pi^ofiuidis, meaning " out of debt," 
And dance like mad — or would if they were let. 



BLACK BEETLES IN AMJIEA' 59 

Deeply disguised (a deacon newly dead 

Supplied the means) Jack Satan holds his head 

As high as any and as loudly sings 

H\s jubilate till each rafter rings. 
' Rejoice, ye ever faithful," bellows he, 
' The debt is lifted and the temple free ! " 

Then says, aside, with gentle cachination : 
' I've got a mortgage on the congregation." 



JOHNDONKEY 

[There isn't a man living who does not have at least a sneak- 
ing reverence for a horse-shoe. — Evening Post.'\ 

THUS the poor ass whose appetite has ne'er 
Known than the thistle any sweeter fare 
Thinks all the world eats thistles. Thus the clown. 
The wit and Mentor of the country town. 
Grins through the collar of a horse and thinks 
Others for pleasure do as he for drinks. 
Though secretly, because unwilling still 
In public to attest their lack of skill. 
Each dunce whose life and mind all follies mar 
Believes as he is all men living are — 
His vices theirs, their understandings his ; 
Naught that he knows not, all he fancies, is. 
How odd that any mind such stuff should boast ! 
How natural to write it in the Post ! 



6o BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 



HELL 

THE friends who stood about m}- bed 
Looked down upon my face and said 
*' God's will be done — the fellow's dead." 

When from ni}^ body I was free 
I straightway felt myself, ah me ! 
Sink downward to the life to be. 

Full twenty centuries I fell, 

And then alighted. " Here you dwell 

For aye," a Voice cried— "this is Hell ! " 

A landscape lay about my feet, 

Where trees were green and flowers sweet. 

The climate was devoid of heat. 

The sun looked down with gentle beam 
Upon the bosom of the stream, 
Nor saw I any sign of steam. 

The waters by the sky w^ere tinged, 
The hills with light and color fringed. 
Birds w^arbled on the wing unsinged. 

" Ah, no, this is not Hell," I cried ; 
*' The preachers ne'er so greatly lied. 
This is Earth's spirit glorified ! 



BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 6i 

" Good souls do not in Hades dwell, 
And, look, there's John P. Irish !" "Well," 
The Voice said, "that's what makes it Hell." 



BY FALSE PRETENSES 

JOHN S. HITTELL, whose sovereign genius wields 
The quill his tributary body yields ; 
The author of an opera — that is, 
All but the music and libretto's his : 
A work renowned, whose formidable name. 
Linked with his own, repels the assault of fame 
From the high vantage of a dusty shelf. 
Secure from all the world except himself ; — 
Who told the tale of "Culture" in a screed 
That all might understand if some would read ;— 
Master of poesy and lord of prose, 
Dowered, like a setter, with a double nose ; 
That one for Erato, for Clio this ; 
He flushes both — not his fault if we miss; — 
Judge of the painter's art, who'll straight proclaim 
The hue of any color you can name, 
And knows a painting with a canvas back 
Distinguished from a duck by the duck's quack ; — 
This thinker and philosopher, whose work 
Is famous from Commercial street to Turk, 
Has got a fortune now, his talent's meed. 
A woman left it him who could not read, 
And so went down to death's eternal night 
Sweetly unconscious that the wretch could write. 



62 BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 



LUCIFER OF THE TORCH 

O REVEREND RAVLIN, once with sounding 
king 
You shook the bloody banner of your tongue, 
Urged all the fiery boycotters afield 
And swore you'd rather follow them than jdeld, 
Alas, how brief the time, how great the change ! — - 
Your dogs of war are ailing all of mange ; 
The loose leash dangles from your finger-tips, 
But the loud ' ' havoc ' ' dies upon your lips. 
No spirit animates your feeble clay — 
You'd rather yield than even run away. 
In vain McGlashan labors to inspire 
Your pallid nostril with his breath of fire : 
The light of battle's faded from your face — 
You keep the peace, John Chinaman his jDlace. 
O Ravlin, what cold w^ater, thrown by whom 
Upon the kindling Boycott's ruddy bloom, 
Has slaked your parching blood-thirst and allayed 
The flash and shimmer of your lingual blade ? 
Your salary — your salary's unpaid ! 

In the old days, when Christ with scourges drave 
The Ravlins headlong from the Temple's nave, 
Each bore upon his pelt the mark divine — 
The Boycott's red authenticating sign. 



BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 63 

Birth-marked forever in surviving hurts, 
Glowing and smarting underneath their vShirts, 
Successive RavHns have revenged their shame 
By blowing every ccal and flinging flame. 
And you, the latest (may 3-0U be the last!) 
Endorsed with that hereditary, vast 
And monstrous rubric, would the feud prolong, 
Save that cupidity forbids the wrong. 
In strife you preferably pass your days— 
But brawl no moment longer than it pa^^s. 
By shouting when no more you can incite 
The dogs to put the timid sheep to flight 
To load, for you, the brambles with their fleece, 
You cackle concord to congenial geese. 
Put pinches of goodwill upon their tails 
And pluck them wdth a touch that never fails. 



THE "WHIRLIGIG OF TIME 

Dr. Jewell speaks of Balaam 
And his vices, to assail 'em. 
Ancient enmities how cruel ! — 
Balaam cudgeled once a Jewell. 



64 BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 



A RAII.ROAD LACKEY 

BEN TRUMAN, you're a genius and can write, 
Thougli one would not suspect it from your looks. 
You lack that certain spareness which is quite 
Distinctive of the persons who make books. 
You show the workmanship of Stanford's cooks 
About the region of the appetite, 
Where geniuses are singularly slight. 
Your friends the Chinamen are understood, 
Indeed, to speak of 3^ou as "belly good." 

Still, you can write — spell, too, I understand — 

Though how two such accomplishments can go. 
Like sentimental schoolgirls, hand in hand 
Is more than ever I can hope to know. 
To have one talent good enough to show 
Has always been sufficient to command 
The veneration of the brilliant band 
Of railroad scholars, who themselves, indeed, 
Although they cannot write, can mostly read„ 

There's Towne and Fillmore, Goodman and Steve Gage, 

Ned Curtis of Napoleonic face, 
Who used to dash his name on glory's page 
" A. M." appended to denote his place 

Among the learned. Now the last faint trace 
Of Nap. is all obliterate with age, 
And Ned's degree less precious than his wage. 



BL A CK BEE TL ES IN A MBER 65 

He says : " I done it," with his every breath. 
" Thou canst not say I did it," says Macbeth. 

Good land ! how I run on ! I quite forgot 
Whom this was meant to be about ; for when 

I think upon that odd, unearthly lot — 

Not quite Creedhaymonds, yet not wholly men — 
I'm dominated by my rebel pen 

That, like the stubborn bird from which 'twas got, 

Goes w^addling forward if I will or not. 

To leave your comrades, Ben, I'm now content : 

I'll meet them later if I don't repent. 

You've writ a letter, I observe — nay, more, 

You've published it — to say how good you think 

The coolies, and invite them to come o'er 
In thicker quantity. Perhaps you drink 

No corporation's wine, but love its ink ; 

Or when you signed away your soul and sw^ore 

On railrogue battle-fields to shed your gore 

You mentally reserved the right to shed 

The raiment of your character- instead. 

You're naked, anyhow : unragged you stand 

In frank and stark simplicity of shame. 
And here upon your flank, in letters grand, 

The iron has marked you with your owner's name. 

Needless, for none would steal and none reclaim. 

But " ^eland $tanford " is a pretty brand. 
Wrought by an artist with a cunning hand 
But come — this naked unreserve is flat : 
Don your habiliment — you're fat, you're fat ! 



66 BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 



THE LEGATEE 

IN fair San Francisco a good man did dwell, 
And he wrote out a will, for he didn't feel well. 
Said he : " It is proper, when making a gift, 
To stimulate virtue b}^ comforting thrift." 

So he left all his propert}^ legal and straight, 
To "the cursedest rascal in all of the State." 
But the name he refused to insert, for, said he ; 
"Let each man consider himself legatee." 

In due course of time that philanthropist died. 
And all San Francisco, and Oakland beside — 
Save onl}^ the lawyers — came each with his claim 
The lawyers preferring to manage the same. 

The cases w^ere tried in Department Thirteen, 
Judge Murphy presided, sedate and serene, 
But couldn't quite specify, legal and straight, 
The cursedest rascal in all of the State. 

And so he remarked to them, little and big — 

To claimants: "You skip!" and to law^yers : "You 

dig!" 
Thej^ tumbled, tumultuous, out of his court 
And left him victorious, holding the fort. 



BL A CK BEE TL ES IN A MBER 67 

'Tvvas then that he said : " It is plain to my mind 

This property's o'.vnerless — how can I find 

The cursedest rascal in all of the State ? " 

So he took it himself, which was legal and straight. 



'*DIED OK A ROSE " 

A REPORTER he was, and he wrote, wrote he : 
' ' The grave was covered as thick as could be 

With floral tributes" — which reading, 
The editor man he said, he did so : 
" For 'floral tributes' he's got for to go, 

For I hold the same misleading." 
Then he called him in and he pointed sweet 
To a blooming garden across the street, 

Inquiring : " What's them a-growing ^. ' ' 
The reporter chap said : ''Why, where's your e3X\s ? 
Them's floral tributes ! " "Arise, arise," 

The editor said, " and be going." 



A I.ITERARY HANGMAN 

Beneath his coat of dirt great Neilson loves 

To hide the avenging rope. 
He handles all he touches without gloves. 

Excepting soap. 



68 BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 



AT THE ELEVENTH HOUR 

AS through the blue expanse he skims 
- On joyous wings, the late 
Frank Hutchings overtakes Miss Sims, 
Both bound for Heaven's high gate. 

In life they loved and (God knows why 

A lover so should sue) 
He slew her, on the gallows high 

Died pious — and they flew. 

Her pinions were bedraggled, vSoiled 

And torn as by a gale, 
While his were bright — all freshl}^ oiled 

The feathers of his tail. 

Her visage, too, was stained and worn 

And menacing and grim ; 
His sweet and mild — you would have sworn 

That she had murdered hhn. 

When they'd arrived before the gate 

He said to her : * ' My dear, 
'Tis hard once more to separate, 

But J071 can't enter here. 



BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 69 

For you, unluckily, were sent 

So quickly to the grave 
You had no notice to repent, 

Nor time 3'our soul to save." 

'Tis true," said she, "and I should wail 

In Hell even now, but I 
Have lingered round the county jail 

To see a Christian die." 



A CONTROVERSIALIST 

I'VE sometimes wished that IngersoU were wise 
To hold his tongue, nor rail against the skies ; 
For when he's made a point some pious dunce 
Like Bartlett of the Bulletin ''repUes." 

I brandish no iconoclastic fist, 
Nor enter the debate an atheist ; 

But when they say there is a God I ask 
Why Bartlett, then, is suffered to exist. 

Even infidels that logic might resent, 

Sajdng : " There's no place for his punishment 

That's worse than earth." But humbly I submit 
That he would make a hell wherever sent. 



70 BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 



MKNDAX 

HIGH Lord of Liars, Pickering:, to thee 
Let meaner mortals bend the subject knee ^ 
Thine is mendacity's imperial crown, 
Alike by genius, action and renown. 
No man, since words could set a cheek aflame 
E'er lied so greatly with so little shame ! 
O bad old man, must thy remaining years 
Be passed in leading idiots by their ears— 
Thine own (which Justice, if she ruled the roast 
Would fasten to the penitential post) 
Still wagging sympathetically — hung 
On the same rocking-bar that bears thy tongue ? 

Thou dog of darkness, dost thou hope to stay 
Time's dread advance till thou hast had thy day ? 
Dost think the Strangler will release his hold 
Because, forsooth, some fibs remain untold ? 
No, no — beneath thy multiplying load 
Of 3^ears thou canst not tarry on the road 
To dabble in the blood thy leaden feet 
Have pressed from bosoms that have ceased to beg! 
Of reputations margining thy way. 
Nor wander from the path new truth to slay. 
Tell to thyself whatever lies thou wilt. 
Catch as thou canst at pennies got by guilt- 
Straight down to death this blessed year thou' It sink, 
Thy life washed out as with a wave of ink. 



BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 71 

But if this prophecy be not fulfilled, 

And thou who killest patience be not killed ; 

If age assail in vain and vice attack 

Only by folly to be beaten back ; 

Yet Nature can this consolation give : 

The roeues who die not are condemned to live \ 



H 



THE RETROSPECTIVE BIRD 

IS caw is a cackle, his eye is dim, 

And he mopes all day on the lowest limb ; 
Not a word says he, but he snaps his bill 
And twitches his palsied head, as a quill. 
The ultimate plume of his pride and hope, 
Quits his now featherless nose-of-the-Pope, 
Leaving that eminence browai and bare 
Exposed to the Prince of the Power of the Air, 
And he sits and he thinks : "I'm an old, old man, 
Mateleses and chickless, the last of my clan, 
But I'd give the half of the days gone by 
To perch once more on the branches high. 
And hear my great-grand-dadd\"'s comical croaks 
In authorized versions ol Bulletin ]okQsy 



72 BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 



THE OAKLAND DOG 

T lyAY one happ}^ night in bed 

And dreamed that all the dogs were dead. 
They'd all been taken out and shot — 
Their bodies strewed each vacant lot. 

O'er all the earth, from Berkele}- down 
To San Leandro's ancient town, 
And out in space as far as Niles — 
I saw their mortal parts in piles. 

One stack upreared its ridge so high 
Against the azure of the sky 
That some good soul, with pious views, 
Put up a steeple and sold pews. 

No wagging tail the scene relieved : 
I never in my life conceived 
( I swear it on the Decalogue ! ) 
Such penury of living dog. 

The barking and the howling stilled, 
The snarling with the snarler killed, 
All nature seemed to hold its breath : 
The silence was as deep as death. 



BLACK BEETLES IX AMBER 73 

True, candidates were all in roar 
On every p'atform, as before ; 
And villains, as before, felt free 
To finger the calliope. 

True, the Salvationist b}^ night, 
And milkman in the early light, 
The lonely flutist and the mill 
Performed their functions with a will. 

True, church bells on a Sunday rang 
The sick man's curtain down — the bang 
Of trains, contesting for the track, 
Out of the shadow called him back. 

True, cocks, at all unheavenly hours, 
Crew with excruciating powers, 
Cats on the woodshed rang and roared, 
Fat citizens and fog-horns snored. 

But this was all too fine for ears 
Accustomed, through the awful ^^ears. 
To the nocturnal monologues 
And day debates of Oakland dogs. 

And so the world was silent. Now 
What else befell — to whom and how ? 
Imprimis, then, there were no fleas. 
And days of worth brought nights of ease. 

Men walked about without the dread 
Of being torn to man}?- a shred, 
Each fragment holding half a cruse 
Of hydrophobia's quickening juice. 



74 BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 

They had not to propitiate 
Some curst kioodle at each gate, 
But entered one another's grounds, 
Unscared, and were not fed to hounds. 

Women could drive and not a pup 
Would lift the horse's tendons up 
And let them go — to interject 
A certain musical effect. 

Even children's ponies went about, 
All grave and sober-paced, without 
A bulldog hanging to each nose- 
Proud of his fragrance, I suppose. 

Dog being dead, Man's lawless flame 
Burned out : he granted Woman's claim, 
Children's and those of countr}^ art— 
They all took lodgings in his heart. * 

When memories of his former shame 
Crimsoned his cheeks with sudden flame 
He said ; "I know my fault too well— = 
They fawned upon me and I fell." 

Ah ! 'twas a lovely world! — no more 
I met that indisposing bore. 
The unseraphic cynogogue — 
The man who's proud to love a dog. 

' Thus in my dream the golden reign 

Of Reason filled the world again, 
And all mankind confessed her sway, 
From Walnut Creek to San Jose. 



BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 



THE UNFALLEN BRAVE 

NOT all in sorrow and in tears, 
To pay of gratitude's arrears 
The yearly sum — 
Not prompted vrholly by the pride 
Of those for whom their friends have died, 
To-day we come. 

Another aim we have in view 
Than for the buried boys in blue 

To drop a tear : 
Memorial Day revives the chin 
Of Barnes, and Salomon chimes in — ■ 

That's wh}^ we're here. 

And when in after-ages the)^ 
Shall pass, like mortal men, away, 

Their war-song sung, 
Then fame will tell the tale anew 
Of how intrepidly they drew 

The deadly tongue. 

Then cull white lilies for the graves 
Of Liberty's loquacious braves, 

And roses red. 
Those represent their livers, these 
The blood that in unmeasured seas 

They did not shed. 



76 BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 



A CEI.EBRATED CASE 

WAY down in the Boom Belt lived Mrs. Roselle ; 
A person named Petrie, he lived there as well ; 
But Mr. Roselle he resided away — 
Sing tooral iooral iooral ia}^ 

Once Mrs. Roselle in her room was alone : 
The flesh of her flesh and the bone of her bone 
Neglected the wife of his bosom to woo — 
Sing tooral iooral iooral ioo. 

Then Petrie, her lover, appeared at the door. 
Remarking : ' ' My dear ; I don't love you no more.' ' 
" That's awfully rough," said the lady, *' on mc — 
Sing tooral iooral iooral iee." 

" Come in, Mr, Petrie," she added, " pray do : 
Although you don't love me no more, I love 3^ou. 
Sit down w^hile I spray 3'ou wdth vitriol now — • 
Sing tooral iooral iooral iow." 

Said Petrie : " That liquid I know won't agree 
With my beauty, and then you'll no longer love me ; 
So spray and be " — O, what a word he did say ! — 
Sing tooral iooral iooral iay. 

She deluged his head and continued to pour 
Till his bonny blue eyes, like his love, were no more. 
It was seldom he got such a hearty shampoo — 
Sing tooral iooral iooral ioo 



BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 

Then Petrie he rose and said : " Mrs. Roselle, 
I have an engagement and bid you farewell." 
"You see," she began to explain — but not he! — 
Sing tooral, iooral, iooral iee. 

The Sheriff he came and he offered his arm, 
Saying, "Sorry I am for disturbin' yoM, marm, 
But business is business." Said she, " So they say 
Sing tooral, iooral, iooral ia3^" 

The Judge on the bench he looked awfully stern; 
The District Attorney began to attorn ; 
The witnesses lied and the lawyers — O my ! — 
Sing tooral, iooral, iooral i^'i. 

The chap that defended her said : "It's our claim 
That he loved us no longer and told us the same. 
What else than we did could we decently do ? — 
Sing tooral, iooral, iooral ioo.' ' 

The District Attorney, sarcastic, replied : 
"We loved you no longer — that can't be denied. 
Not having no eyes we may dote on 3'ou now — 
Sing tooral, iooral, iooral iow." 

The prisoner wept to entoken her fears ; 
The sockets of Petrie were flooded with tears. 
Q heaven-born Sympath}-, bully for 3'ou ! — • 
Sing tooral, iooral, iooral ioo. 

Four jurors considered the prisoner mad, 
And four thought her victim uncommonly bad. 
And four that the acid was all in his eye — 
Sing rum tiddy iddity iddity hi. 



77 



78 BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 



COUPLETS 

Intended for Incription 0:1 a Sword Presented to Colonel 
Cutting of the National Guard of California. 

T AM for Cutting. I'm a blade 

J- Designed for use at dress parade. 

My gleaming length when I displa}^ 

Peace rules the lind with gentle swa}^ ; 

But when the war-dogs bare their teeth 

Go seek me in the modest sheath. 

I am for Cutting. Not for me 

The task of setting nations free. 

Let soulless blades take human life, 

M}^ softer metal shuns the strife. 

The annual review is mine, 

When gorgeous shopmen sweat and shine, 

And Bidd}^, tip-toe on the pave, 

Adores the cobble-trotting brave. 

I am for Cutting. 'Tis not mine 

To hew amain the hostile line : 

Not mine all pitiless to spread 

The plain with tumuli of dead. 

My grander duty lies afar 

From haunts of the insane hussar, 

Where charging horse and struggling foot 

Are grimed alike with cannon-soot. 

When Loveliness and Valor meet 

Beneath the trees to dance, and eat, 

And sing, and much beside, behold 



BL A CK DEE TL ES IN AMBER 79 

My golden glories all unfold ! 
There formidably are displayed 
The useful horrors of my blade 
In time of feast and dance and ballad, 
I am for cuttiner chicken salad. 



A RETORT 

AS vicious women think all men are knaves, 
- And shrew-bound gentlemen discourse of slaves 
As reeling drunkards judge the world unsteady 
And idlers swear employers ne'er get read 3- — 
Thieves that the constable stole all they had, 
The mad that all except themselves are mad ; 
So, in another's clear escutcheon shown, 
Barnes rails at stains reflected from his own; 
Prates of "docility," nor feels the dark 
Ring round his neck — the Ralston collar mark. 
Back, man, to studies interrupted once, 
Kre yet the rogue had merged into the dunce . 
Back, back to Yale ! and, grown with years discreet. 
The course a virgin's lust cut short, complete. 
Go drink again at the Pierian pool. 
And learn — at least to better play the fool. 
No longer scorn the draught, although the font. 
Unlike Pactolus, waters not Belmont. 



8o BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 



A VISION OF RESURRECTION 

I HAD a dream. The habitable earth — 
Its continents and islands, all were bare 
Of cities and of forests. Naught remained 
Of its old aspect, and I only knew 
(As men know things in dreams, unknowing how) 
That this was earth and that all men were dead. 
On every side I saw the barren land, 
Even to the distant sky's inclosing blue, 
Thick-pitted all with graves ; and all the graves 
Save one were open — not as newly dug. 
But rather as by some internal force 
Riven for egress. Tombs of stone were split 
And wide agape, and in their iron decaj- 
The massive mausoleums stood in halves. 
With mildewed linen all the ground was white. 
Discarded shrouds upon memorial stones 
Hung without motion in the soulless air. 
While greatly marveling how this should be 
I heard, or fancied that I heard, a voice, 
Eow like an angel's, delicately strong, 
And sweet as music. 

— " Spirit," it said, " behold 
The burial place of universal Man I 
A million years have rolled away since here 
His sheeted multitudes (save only some 



BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 

Whose dark misdeeds required a separate 
And individual arraignment) rose 
To judgment at the trumpet's summoning 
And passed into the sky for their award, 
Leaving behind these perishable things 
Which yet, preserved by miracle, endure 
Till all are up. Then they and all of earth, 
Rock-hearted mountain and storm-breasted sea. 
River and wilderness and sites of dead 
And vanished capitals of men, shall spring 
To flame, and naught shall be for evermore ! 
When all are risen that w^onder will occur. 
'Twas but ten centuries ago the last 
But one came forth — a soul so black with sin, 
Against whose name so many crimes were set 
That only now his trial is at end. 
But one remains." 

Straight, as the voice was stilled — 

That single rounded mound cracked lengthliwise 

And one came forth in grave-clothes. For a space 

He stood and gazed about him with a smile 

Superior ; then laying off his shroud 

Disclosed his two attenuated legs 

Which, like parentheses, bent outwardly 

As by the weight of saintliness above, 

And so sprang upward and was lost to view 

Noting his headstone overthrown, I read : 

"Sacred to memory of George K. Fitch, 

Deacon and Editor — a holy man 

Who fell asleep in Jesus, full of years 

And blessedness. The dead in Christ rise first.'* 



82 BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 



MASTER OF THREE ARTS 

YOUR various talents, Goldenson, command 
Respect: you are a poet and can draw. 
It is a pit3^ that your gifted hand 

Should ever have been raised against the law. 
If you had drawn no pistol, but a picture, 
You would have saved your throttle from a stricture. 

About your poetry I'm not so sure : 

'Tis certain we have much that's quite as bad, 

Whose hardy writers have not to endure 

The hangman's fondling. It is said they're mad : 

Though lately Mr. Brooks (I mean the poet) 

Looked well, and if demented didn't show it. 

Well, Goldenson, I am a poet, too — 

Taught by the muses how to smite the harp 

And lift the tuneful voice, although, like you 

And Brooks, I sometimes flat and sometimes sharp. 

But let me say, with no desire to taunt you, 

I never murder even the girls I want to. 

I hold it one of the poetic laws 

To sing of life, not take. I've ever shown 
A high regard for human life because 

I have such trouble to support my own. 
And 3^ou — well, you'll find trouble soon in blowing 
Your private coal to keep it red and glowing. 



BLACK BEETLES I. \^ AMBER 83 

I fancy now I see 3^011 at the Gate 

Approach St. Peter, crawling on your belly, 

You cry : * ' Good sir, take pity on my state — 
Forgive the murderer of Mamie Kelly ! " 

And Peter says : " O, that's all right— but, mister, 

You scribbled rhymes. In Hell I'll make you 
blister ! ' ' 



THKRSITRS 

SO, in the Sunday papers ji'^?^ Del Mar, 
Damn all great Englishmen in English speech? 
I am no Englishman, but in my reach 
A rogue shall never rail where heroes are. 

You are the man, if I mistake you not, 
Who lately with a supplicating twitch 
Plucked at the pockets of the London ricli 

And paid 3^our share-engraver all you got. 

Because that you have greatly iied, because 
You libel nations, and because no hand 
Of officer is raised to bid you stand. 

And falsehood is unpunished of the laws, 

I stand here in a public place to mark 

With level finger where you part the crowd — 
I stand to name you and to cry aloud : 

Behold mendacity's great hierarch ! " 



84 BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 



A SOCIETY LEADER 

C 4>^HK Social World " ! O what a world it is— 
J- Where full-grown men cut capers in the German, 
Cotillion, waltz, or what you will, and whizz 

And spin and hop and sprawl about like mermen f 
I wonder if our future Grant or Sherman, 
As these youths pass their time, is passing his — 
If eagles ever come from painted eggs, 
Or deeds of arms succeed to deeds of legs. 

I know they tell us about Waterloo : 

How, "foremost fighting," fell the evening's 
dancers. 

I don't believe it : I regard it true 

That soldiers who are skillful in " the Lancers " 
Less often die of cannon than of cancers. 

Moreover, I am half-persuaded, too, 

That David when he danced before the Ark 
Had the reporter's word to keep it dark. 

Ed. Greenway, you fatigue. Your hateful name 
Like maiden's curls, is in the papers daily. 

You think it, doubtless, honorable fame, 

And contemplate the cheap distinction gaily, 
As does the monkey the blue-painted tail he 

Believes becoming to him. 'Tis the same 
With men as other monkeys : all their souls 
Crave eminence on any kind of poles. 



BLACK BEETLES LV AMBER 85 

But C3''nics (barking tribe !) are all agreed 
That monkeys upon poles performing capers 

Are not exalted, they are only " treed." 
A glory that is kindled by the papers 
Is transient as the phosphorescent vapors 

That shine in graveyards and are seen, indeed, 
But while the bodies that supply the gas 
Are turning into weeds to feed an ass. 

One can but wonder sometimes how it feels 
To be an ass — a beast we beat condignly 

Because, like yours, his life is in his heels 
And he is prone to use them unbenignly. 
The ladies (bless them I ) say you dance divinely. 

I like St. Vitus better, though, who deals 
His feet about him with a grace more just, 
And hops, not for he will, but for he must. 

Doubtless it gratifies 3^ou to observe 

Elbovv-3^ girls and adipose mamas 
All looking adoration as you swerve 

This way and that ; but prosperous papas 

Laugh in their sleeves at 3^ou, and their ha-has. 
If heard, v.ould somev/hat agitate your nerve. 

And dames and maids who keep you on their 
shelves 

Don't seem to want a closer tie themselves. 

Gods 1 what a life you live ! — by day a slave 
To your exacting back and urgent belly ; 

Intent to earn and vigilant to save — 

By night, attired so sightly and so smelly, 



86 BL A CK BEE TL ES TN A MB EM 

With countenance as luminous as jelly, 
Bobbing and bowing ! King of hearts and knave 
Of diamonds, I'd bet a silver brick 
If brains were trumps you'd never take a trick. 



EXPOSITOR VERITATIS 

SLEPT, and, waking in the >' ears to be, 
Heard voices, and.approaching whence they came, 
Listened indifferently where a key 

Had lately been removed. An ancient dame 
Said to her daughter : '' Go to yonder caddy 
And get some emery to scour 3^our daddy." 

And then I knew — some intuition said — 

That tombs were not and men had cleared their 
shelves 

Of urns; and the electro-plated dead 

Stood pedestaled as statues of themselves. 

With famous dead men all the public places 

Were thronged, and some in piles awaited bases. 

One mighty structure's high facade alone 

Contained a single monumental niche, 

Where, central in that steep expanse cf stone, 

Gleamed the familiar form of Thomas Fitch. 

A man cried : " Eo ! Truth's temple and its founder ! " 

Then gravely added : "I'm her chief expounder." 



BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 87 



TO "COIvONEL" DAN. BURNS 

^T^HEY say, my lord, that you're a Warwick. Well, 
-*- The title's an absurd one, I believe : 

You make no kings, you have no kings to sell, 
Though really 'twere easy to conceive 
You stuffing half-a-dozen up your sleeve. 

No, you're no Warwick, skillful from the shell 

To hatch out sovereigns. On a mare's nest, maybe, 

You'd incubate a little jackass baby. 

I fancy, too, that it is naught but stuff, 

This ''power" that you're said to be "behind 
The throne. " I'm sure 'twere accurate enough 
To represent 3^ou simply as inclined 
To push poor Markham (ailing in his mind 
And body, which were never very tough) 
Round in an invalid's wheeled chair. Such menial 
Employment to low natures is congenial. 

No, Dan, you're an impostor every way : 

A human bubble, for "the earth," you know, 
" Hath bubbles, as the water hath." Some day 
Some careless hand will prick your film, and O. 
How utterly you'll vanish ! Daniel, throw 
(As fallen Woolsey might to Cromwell say) 
Your curst ambition to the pigs — though truly 
'Twould make them greater pigs, and more unruly. 



S8 BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 



GEORGE A. KNIGHT 

ATTORNEY KNIGHT, it happens so sometimes 
- That lawyers, justifying cut-throats' crimes 
For hire — calumniating, too, for gold, 
The dead, dumb victims cruelly unsouled — 
Speak, through the press, to a tribunal far 
More honorable than their Honors are, — 
A court that sits not with assenting smile 
While living rogues dead gentleman revile, — 
A court where scoundrel ethics of your trade 
Confuse no judgment and no cheating aid, — 
The Court of Honest Souls, where you in vain 
May plead your right to falsify for gain, 
Sternly reminded if a man engage 
To serve assassins for the liar's wage, 
His mouth with vilifying falsehoods crammed. 
He's twice detestable and doubly damned ! 

Attorney Knight, defending Powell, you, 

To earn your fee, so energetic grew 

(So like a hound, the pride of all the pack, 

Clapping your nose upon the dead man 's track 

To run his faults to earth — at least proclaim 

At vacant holes the overtaken game) 

That men who marked you flourishing the tongue, 

And saw your arms so vigorously swung, 



BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 89 

All marveled how so light a breeze could stir 
So great a windmill to so great a whirr ! 
Little they knew, or surely they had grinned, 
The mill was laboring to raise the wind. 

Ralph Smith a " shoulder-striker" ! God, O hear 
This hardy man's description of thy dear 
Dead child, the gentlest soul, save only One, 
E'er born in any land beneath the sun. 
All silent benefactions still he wrought : 
High deed and gracious speech and noble thought, 
Kept all thy law, and, seeking still the right, 
Upon his blameless breast received the light. 

" Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughtered saints," he cried 
Whose wrath was deep as his comparison wide- — ■ 
Milton, thy servant. Nay, thy wall be done : 
To smite or spare — to me it all is one. 
Can vengeance bring my sorrow to an end. 
Or justice give me back my buried friend ? 
But if some Milton vainly now implore, 
And Powell prosper as he did before, 
Yet 'twere too much that, making no ado, 
Thy saints be slaughtered and be slandered too. 
So, Lord, make Knight his weapon keep in sheath, 
Or do Thou wrest it from between his teeth ! 



90 BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 



UNARMED 



SAINT Peter sat at the jasper gate, 
When Stephen M. White arrived in state. 

' Admit me," " With pleasure," Peter said, 
Pleased to observe that the man was dead ; 



" That's what I'm here for. Kindly show 
Your ticket, my lord, and in you go." 

White stared in blank surprise. Said he : 
" I run this place — ^just turn that key.' ' 

' ' Yes ? ' ' said the Saint ; and Stephen heard 
With pain the inflection of that word. 

But, mastering his emotion, he 

Remarked: *' My friend, you're too d • free 

" I'm Stephen M., by thunder. White ! " 
And, " Yes?" the guardian said, with quite 

The self-same irritating stress 
Distinguishing his former yes. 

And still demurely as a mouse 

He twirled the key to that Upper House. 



BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 91 

Then Stephen, seeing his bUister vain 
Admittance to those halls to gain, 

Said, neighborly : * ' Pray tell me, Pete, 
Does an}^ one contest my seat ? " 

The Saint replied : ' ' Nay, nay, not so ; 
But you voted always wrong below : 

" Whate'er the question, clear and high 
You're voice rang: '/,' '/,' ever */.' 

Now indignation fired the heart 
Of that insulted immortal part. 

'' Die, wretch ! " he cried, with blanching lip, 
And made a motion to his hip, 

With purpose murderous and hearty, 
To draw the Democratic party ! 

He felt his fingers vainly slide 
Upon his unappareled hide 

(The dead arise from their ' ' silent tents ' " 
But not their late habiliments) 

Then wailed— the briefest of his speeches \ 
** I've left it in my other breeches ! " 



92 BLACK BEETLES LN AMBER 



A POI.ITICAL VIOI.KT 

COMB, Stanford, let us sit at ease 
And talk as old friends do. 
You talk of anj'thing you please, 
And I will talk of you. 

You recently have said, I hear. 

That you would like to go 
To serve as Senator. That's queer ! 

Have you told William Stow ? 

Once when the Legislature said : 
" Go, Stanford, and be great ! " 
You lifted up your Jovian head 
And everlooked the State. 

As one made leisurel}^ awake, 

You lightly rubbed your eyes 
And answered : " Thank 3^ou — please to make 

A note of my surprise. 

* ' But who are they who skulk aside, 
As to get out of reach, 
And in their clothing strive to hide 
Three thousand dollars each ? 



BLACK BEETLES L^f AMBER 

" Not members of your body, sure? 
No, that can hardly be : 
All statesmen, I suppose, are pure. 

What ! there are rogues ? Dear me ! ' ' 

You added, you'll recall, that though 
You were surprised and pained, 

You thought, upon the whole, you'd ^(.\ 
And in that mind remained. 

Now, what so great a change has wrought 

That you so frankly speak 
Of '* seeking " honors once unsought 

Because you '' scorned to seek " ? 

Do you not fear the grave reproof 
In good Creed Raymond's eye ? 

Will Stephen Gage not stand aloof 
And pass you coldly b}^ ? 

O, fear you not that Vrooman's lich 
Will rise from earth and point 

At you a scornful finger which 
May lack, perchance, a joint ? 

Go, Stanford, where the violets grow, 

And join their modest train. 
Await the work of William Stow 

And be surprised again. 



93 



94 BLACK BEETLES LY AMBER 



THE SUBDUED EDITOR 

POPE-CHOKER Pixley sat in his den 
A-chewin' upon his quid. 
He thought it was Eeo Thirteen, and then 
He bit it intenser, he did. 

The amber which overflew from the cud 

Like rivers which burst out of bounds — 

'Twas peculiar grateful to think it blood 
A-gushin' from Papal wounds. 

A knockin' was heard uponto the door 

Where some one a-waitin' was. 
"Come in," said the shedder of priestly gore, 

Arrestin' to once his jaws. 

The person which entered was curly of hair 

And smilin' as ever you see ; 
His e3^es was blue, and uncommon fair 

Was his physiognomee. 

And yet there was some' at remarkable grand — - 

And the editor says as he looks : 
" Your Height" (it was Highness, you understand, 

That he meant, but he spoke like books) — 

" Your Height, I am in. I'm the editor man 

Of this paper — which is to say, 
I'm the owner, too, and it's alway ran 

In the independentest way ! 



BLACK BEETLES LN AMBER 95 

" Not a damgaloot can interfere, 

A-shapin' my course for me : 
This paper's (and nothing can make it veer) 

Pixleian in policee ! ' ' 

" It's little to me," said the sunny 3^outh, 

" If journals is better or worse • 
Where I am to home they won't keep, in truth, 

The climate is that perverse. 

** I've come, howsomever, your mind to light 

With a more superior fire : 
You'll have naught hencefor'ard to do but write, 

While I sets by and inspire. 

" We'll make it hot all round, bedad ! " 

And his laughture was loud and free. 
" The devil ! " cried Pixley, surpassin' mad. 
" Exactly, m}^ friend — that's me." 

So he took a chair and a feather fan, 

And he sets and sets and sets, 
Inspirin' that humbled editor man, 

Which sweats and sweats and sweats I 

All unavailin' his struggles be, 

And it's, O, a weepin' sight 
To see a great editor bold and free 

Reducted to sech a plight ! 



96 BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 



''BLACK BART, Po8 " 

WELCOME, good friend; as 3^ou have served your 
term, 
And found the joy of crime to be a fiction, 
I hope you'll hold your present faith, stand firm 
And not again be open to conviction. 

Your sins, though scarlet once, are now as wool : 
You've made atonement for all past offenses, 

And conjugated — 'twas an awful pull ! — 

The verb " to pay " in all its moods and tenses. 

You were a dreadful criminal — by Heaven, 
I think there never was a man so sinful ! 

We've all a pinch or two of Satan's leaven, 
But you appeared to have an even skinful. 

Earth shuddered with aversion at your name; 

Rivers fled backward, gravitation scorning ; 
The sea and sky, from thinking on your shame, 

Grew lobster-red at eve and in the morning. 

But still red-handed at your horrid trade 

You wrought, to reason deaf, and to compassion. 

But now with gods and men your peace is made 
I beg you to be good and in the fashion. 



BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 97 

What's that ? — you "ne'er again will rob a stage " ? 

What I did yoM do so ? Faith, I didn't know it. 
Was that what threw poor Themis in a rage ? 

I thought you were convicted as a poet ! 

I own it was a comfort to ni}^ soul, 

And soothed it better than the deepest curses, 

To think they'd got one poet in a hole 

Where, though he wrote, he could not print, his 
verses. 

I thought that Welcker, Plunkett, Brooks, and all 
The ghastly crew who always are begriming 

With villian couplets every page and wall, 
Might be arrested and " run in " for rhyming. 

And then Parnassus would be left to me. 
And Pegasus should bear me up it gaily, 

Nor down a steep place run into the sea, 
As now he must be tempted to do daily. 

Well, grab the lyre-strings, hearties, and begin : 
Bawl your harsh souls all out upon the gravel. 

I must endure 3^ou, for you'll never sin 

By robbing coaches, until dead men travel. 



98 BLACK BEETLES LN AMBER 



A ''SCION OF NOBII^ITY" 

COME, sisters, weep ! — our Baron dear, 
Alas 1 has run away. 
If ahvaj-s we had kept him here 
He had not gone astra3\ 

Painter and grainer it were vain 

To sa}^ he was, before ; 
And if he were, yet ne'er again 

He'll darken here a door. 

We mourn each matrimonial plan- 
Even tradesmen join the cry : 

He was so promising a man 
Whenever he did bu}-. 

He was a fascinating lad, 

Deny it all who ma}^ ; 
Even monej^ed men confess he had 

A very taking way. 

So from our tables he is gone — ■ 
Our tears descend in showers ; 

We loved the very fat upon 
His kidneys, for 'twas ours. 

To women he was all respect 

To duns as cold as ice ; 
No lady could his suit reject, 

No tailor get its price. 



BLACK BEETLES LV AMBER 

He raised our hope above the sky ; 

Alas ! alack ! and O ! 
That one who worked it up so high 

Should play it down so low ! 



99 



THE NIGHT OF ELECTION 

4 (. r\ VENERABLE patriot, I pray 

^-^ Stand not here coatless; at the break of day 

We'll know the grand result — and even now 
The eastern sky is faintly touched with gray. 

'* It ill befits thine age's hoary crown — 
This rude environment of rogue and clow^n, 

Who, as the lying bulletins appear, 
With drunken cries incarnadine the town. 

' ' But if with noble zeal 3'ou stay to note 
The outcome of your patriotic vote 

For Blaine, or Cleveland, and your native land, 
Take — and God bless 3'ou ! — take m}^ overcoat." 

'' Done, pard — and mighty white of you. And now 
guess the country' 11 keep the trail somehow\ 
I aint allowed to vote, the Warden said. 
But whacked my coat up on old Stanislow. " 



BLACK BEETLES IN AM B Eli 



THE CONVICTS' BALL 

SAN QUBNTIN was brilliant. Within the halls 
Of the noble pile with the frowning walls 
(God knows they've enough to make them frown, 
With a Governor trying to break them down ! ) 
Was a blaze of light. 'Twas the natal day 
Of his nibs the popular John S. Gray, 
And many observers considered his birth 
The primary cause of his moral w^orth. 
The ball is free ! ' ' cried Black Bart, and they all 
Said a ball with no chain was a novel ball ; 
And I never have seed," said Jimmy Hope, 
Sech a lightsome dance withouten a rope." 
Chinamen, Indians, Portuguese, Blacks, 

Russians, Italians, Kanucks and Kanaks, 

Chilenos, Peruvians, Mexicans — all 

Greased with their presence that notable ball. 

None were excluded excepting, perhaps. 

The Rev. Morrison's churchly chaps. 

Whom, to prevent a religious debate. 

The Warden had banished outside of the gate. 

The fiddler, fiddling his hardest the while, 
■ Called off" in the regular foot-hill style : 
• Circle to the left ! " and ''Forward and back ! " 

And " Helium to port for the stabbard tack ! '* 

(This great virtuoso, it would appear. 

Was Mate of the Gatherer many a year. ) 



BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER ] 

' Ally man left ! " — to a painful degree 
His French was unlike to the French of Paree, 
As heard from our countrymen lately abroad, 
And his ''doe cee doe'' was the gem of the fraud. 
But what can you hope from a gentleman barred 
From circles of culture by dogs in the yard ? 
'Twas a glorious dance, though, all the same, 
The Jardin Mabille in the days of its fame 
Never saw legs perform such springs — 
The cold-chisel's magic had given them wings. 
They footed it featly, those lades and gents: 
Dull care (said Long Moll) had a helly go-hence ! 

'Twas a very aristocratic affair : 
The creme de la creme and elite were there — 
Rank, beauty and wealth from the highest sets, 
And Hubert Howe Bancroft sent his regrets. 



A PRAYER 

OWEKT Spirit of Cesspool, hear a mother's prayer 

^ Her terrors pacify and offspring spare I 

Upon Silurians alone let fall 

(And God in Heaven have mercy on them all !) 

The red revenges of your fragrant breath. 

Hot with the flames invisible of death. 

Sing in each nose a melody of smells. 

And lead them snoutwise to their several hells ! 



BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 



TO ONE DETESTED 

OlR, you're a veteran, revealed 

In history and fable 
As warrior since you took the field. 

Defeating Abel. 

As Commissary later (or 
If not, in every cottage 
The tale is) you contracted for 
A mess of pottage. 

In civil life you were, we read 
(And our respect increases) 
A man of peace — a man, indeed, 
Of thirty pieces. 

To paying taxes when you turned 
Your mind, or what you call so, 
A wide celebrity you earned — 
Saphira also. 

In every age, by various names. 
You've won renown in story, 
But on your present record flames 
A greater glory. 



BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 103 

Cain, Esau, and Iscariot, too. 

And Ananias, likewise. 
Each had peculiar powers, but who 
Could lie as Mike lies ? 



THE BOSS'S CHOICE 

LISTEN to his wild romances : 
He advances foolish fancies. 
Each expounded as his " view "— 
Gu. 

In his brain's opacous clot, ah 
He has got a maggot ! What a 
Man with *' views " to overwhelm us 
Gulielmus. 

Hear his demagogic clamor — 
Hear him stammer in his grammar ! 
Teaching, he will learn to spell — 
Gulielmus L. 

Slave who paid the price demanded— 
With two-handed iron branded 
By the boss — pray cease to dose us, 
Gulielmus L. Jocosus. 



I04 BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 



A MERCIFUL GOVERNOR 

STANDING within the triple wall of Hell, 
And flattening his nose against a grate 
Behind whose brazen bars he'd had to dwell 
A thousand million ages to that date, 
Stoneman bewailed his melancholy fate, 
And his big tear-drops, boiling as they fell, 
Had worn between his feet, the record mentions, 
A deep depression in the " good intentions." 

Imperfectly by memor}^ taught how — 

For prayer in Hell is a lost art — he prayed. 
Uplifting his incinerated brow 

And flaming hands in supplication's aid. 
O grant," he cried, " my torment may be staj-ed — 
In mercy, some short breathing spell allow ! 
If one good deed I did before my ghosting, 
Spare me and give Delmas a double roasting. ' 

Breathing a holy harmony in Hell, 

Down through the appalling clamors of the place, 
Charming them all to willing concord, fell 

A Voice ineffable and full of grace : 
Because of all the law-defying race 
One single malefactor of the cell 
Thou didst not free from his incarceration, 
Take thou ten thousand years of condonation." 



UL A CK BEE TLES IN AMBER 1 05 

Back from their fastenings began to shoot 

The rusted bolts ; with dreadful roar, the gate 
Laboriously turned ; and, black with soot, 

The extinguished spirit passed that awful strait, 
And as he legged it into space, elate, 
Muttered : ' ' Yes, I remember that galoot— 
I'd signed his pardon, ready to allot it, 
But stuck it in my desk and quite forgot it." 



AN INTERPRETATION 

NOW Eonergan appears upon the boards. 
And Truth and Error sheathe their lingual 
swords. 
No more in wordy warfare to engage, 
The commentators bow before the stage, 
And bookworms, militant for ages past. 
Confess their equal foolishness at last, 
Reread their Shakspeare in the newer light 
And swear the meaning's obvious to sight. 
For centuries the question has been hot : 
Was Hamlet crazy, or was Hamlet not ? 
Now, Eonergan's illuminating art 
Reveals the truth of the disputed "part," 
And shows to all the critics of the earth 
That Hamlet was an idiot from birth ! 



io6 BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 



A SOARING TOAD 

SO, Governor, you would not serve again 
Although we'd all agree to pay you double. 
You find it all is vanity and pain — 

One clump of clover in a field of stubble — 
One grain of pleasure in a peck of trouble. 
'Tis sad, at your age, having to complain 
Of disillusion ; but the fault is whose 
When pigmies stumble, wearing giants' shoes ? 

I humbly told you many moons ago 
For high preferment you were all unfit. 

A clumsy bear makes but a sorry show 
Climbing a pole. Let him, judicious, sit 
With dignity at bottom of his pit, 

And none his awkwardness will ever know. 

Some beasts look better, and feel better, too. 

Seen from above ; and so, I think, would you. 

Why, you were mad 1 Did you suppose because 
Our foolish system suffers foolish men 

To climb to power, make, enforce the laws, 

And, it is whispered, break them now and then. 
We love the fellows and respect them when 

We've stilled the volume of our loud hurrahs ? 

When folly blooms we trample it the more 

For having fertilized it heretofore. 



JU.ACK BEETLES IN AMBER 107 

Behold yOn laborer ! His garb is mean, 
His face is grimy, but who thinks to ask 

The measure of his brains ? 'Tis only seen 
He's fitted for his honorable task. 
And so delights the mind. But let him bask 

In droll prosperity, absurdly clean — 

Is that the man whom we admired before ? 

Good Lord, how ignorant, and what a bore ! 

Better for you that thoughtless men had said 
(Noting your fitness in the humbler sphere) : 

" Why don't they make him Governor? " instead 
Of, " Why the devil did they ? " But I fear 
My words on your inhospitable ear 

Are wasted like a sermon to the dead. 

Still, they may profit you if studied well : 

You can't be taught to think, but may to spell. 



AN UNDRESS UNIFORM 

The apparel does 7iot proclaim the man — 
Polonius lied like a partisan, 
And Salomon still would a hero seem 
If (Heaven dispel the impossible dream !) 
He stood in a shroud on the hangman's trap, 
His ej^e burning holes in the black, black cap. 
And the crowd below would exclaim amain : 
' He's ready to fall for his countr}^ again ! " 



io8 BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 



THE PERVERTED VILLAGE 

AFTER GOI.DSMITH 

SWEET Auburn ! liveliest village of the plain, 
Where Health and Slander welcome every train 
Whence smiling innocence, its tribute paid, 
Retires in terror, wounded and dismayed — 
Dear lovel>' bowers of gossip and disease, 
Whose climate cures us that thy dames ma}' tease, 
How often have I knelt upon thy green 
And prayed for death, to mitigate their spleen ! 
How often have I paused on every charm 
With mingled admiration and alarm — 
The brook that runs by many a scandal-mill, 
The church whose pastor groans upon the grill, 
The cowthorn bush with seats beneath the shadcj 
Where hearts are struck and reputations flayed ; 
How often wished thine idle wives, some day, 
Might more at whist, less at the devil, play. 

Unblest retirement ! ere my life's decline 
(Killed by detraction) may I witness thine. 
How happy she who, shunning shades like these, 
Finds in a wolf-den greater peace and ease ; 
Who quits the place whence truth did earlier fly, 
And rather than come back prefers to die ! 
For her no jealous maids renounce their sleep, 
Contriving malices to make her weep ; 



BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 

No iron-faced dames her character debate 
And spurn imploring mercy from the gate ; 
But down she lies to a more peaceful end, 
For wolves do not calumniate, but rend — 
Sinks piecemeal to their maws, a willing prey, 
While resignation lubricates the way, 
And all her prospects brighten at the last : 
To w^olves, not women, an approved repast. 
1884.. 



MR. SHEETS 

THE Devil stood before the gate 
Of Heaven. He had a single mate : 
Behind him, in his shadow, slunk 
Clay Sheets in a perspiring funk. 
Saint Peter, see this season ticket," 
Said Satan ; ' ' pray undo the wicket. ' ' 
The sleepy Saint threw slight regard 
Upon the proffered bit of card. 
Signed by some clerical dead-beats : 
Admit the bearer and Clay Sheets." 
Peter expanded all his eyes : 

Clay Sheets ? ' — well, I'll be damned ! " he cries. 
Our couches are of golden cloud ; 
Nothing of earth is here allow^ed. 
I'll let you in," he added, shedding 
On Nick a smile — ''but not your bedding." 



no BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 



A JACK-AT-ALL-VIEWS 

SO, Bstee, you are still alive ! I thought 
That you had died and were a blessed ghost 
I know at least your coffin once was bought 
With Railroad money ; and 'twas said bj^ most 
Historians that Stanford made a boast 
The seller "threw you in." That goes for naught-- 
Man takes delight in fancy's fine inventions. 
And woman too, 'tis said, if they are French ones. 

Do you remember, Kstee — ah, 'twas long 

And long ago ! — how fierce 3^ou grew and hot 

When anything impeded the straight, strong. 
Wild sweep of the great billow 3^ou had got 
Atop of, like a swimmer bold ? Great Scott ! 

How fine your wavemanship ! How loud your song 

Of "Down with railroads!" When the wave sub- 
sided 

And left 3^ou stranded you were much divided. 

Then for a time you were content to wade 
The waters of the ' ' robber barons' ' ' moat. 

To fetch and carry was your humble trade, 
And ferry Stanford over in a boat. 
Well paid if he bestowed the kindly groat 

And spoke you fair and called 3^ou prettj^ maid. 

And when his stomach seemed a bit unsteady 

You got your serviceable basin ready. 



BLA CK UEE TLBS IN AMBER 1 1 1 

Strange man ! how odd to see 3^011, smug and spruce, 
There at Chicago, burrowed in a Chair, 

Not made to measure and a deal too loose, 
And see you lift your little arm and swear 
Democracy shall be no more I If it's a fair 

And civil question, and not too abstruse, 

Were 3''0U elected as a *' robber baron," 

Or as a Communist whose teeth had hair on ? 



MY LORD POET 

C cTT 7HO drives fat oxen should himself be fat ; " 
^ V Who sings for nobles, he should noble be. 
There's no non seqicitur^ I think, in that, 

And this is logic plain as a, b, c. 
Now, Hector Stuart, you're a Scottish prince, 

If right you fathom your descent — that fall 
From grace ; and since you have no peers, and since 

You have no kind of nobleness at all, 
'Twere better to sing little, lest you wince 

When made by heartless critics to sing small. 
And yet, my liege, I bid 3^ou not despair — 

Ambition conquers but a realm at once : 
For European bays arrange 3^our hair — 

Two continents, in time, shall crown 3^ou Dunce ! 



112 BLACK BEETLES IN AMBEF 



TO THE FOOL-KILLER 

AH, welcome, welcome ! Sit you down, old friend ; 
- Your pipe I'll serve, your bottle I'll attend„ 
'Tis many a year since you and I have known 
Society more pleasant than our own 
In our brief respites from excessive work — 
I pointing out the hearts for you to dirk. 
What have you done since lately at this board 
We canvassed the deserts of all the horde 
And chose what names would please the people best, 
Engraved on coffin-plates — what bounding breast 
Would give more satisfaction if at rest ? 
But never mind — the record cannot fail : 
The loftiest monuments will tell the tale. 

I trust ere next we meet you '11 sla}^ the chap 
Who calls old Tyler ''Judge " and Merry ''Cap ' '— 
Calls John P. Irish " Colonel" and John P., 
Whose surname Jack-son speaks his pedigree, 
By the same title — men of equal rank 
Though one is belly all, and one all shank, 
Showing their several service in the fra}^ : 
One fought for food and one to get awa3\ 
I hope, I say, you'll kill the " title " man 
Who saddles one on every back he can. 
Then rides it from Beersheba to Dan ! 



BLACK DEE TLBS IN AMBER irj 

Another fool, I trust, 3^011 will perform 

Your office on while my resentment's warm : 

He shakes my hand a dozen times a day 

If, luckless, I so often cross his way, 

Though I've three senses besides that of touch, 

To make me conscious of a fool too much. 

Seek him, friend Killer, and your purpose make 

Apparent as his guilty hand you take. 

And set him trembling with a solemn : '' Shake ! " 

But chief of all the addle- witted crew 

Conceded by the Hangman's I^eague to you, 

The fool (his dam's acquainted with a knave) 

Whose fluent pen, of his no-brain the slave, 

Strews notes of introduction o'er the land 

And calls it hospitality — his hand 

;May palsy seize ere he again consign 

To me his friend, as I to Hades mine ! 

Pity the wretch, his faults howe'er you see, 

Whom A accredits to his victim, B. 

Like shuttlecock which battledores attack 

(One speeds it forward, one would drive it back) 

The trustful simpleton is twice unblest — 

A rare good riddance, an unwelcome guest. 

The glad consignor rubs his hands to think 

How duty is commuted into ink ; 

The consignee (his hands he cannot rub — 

He has the man upon them) mutters : ' ' Cub ! ' ' 

And straightway plans to lose him at the Club. 

You know, good Killer, where this dunce abides — 

The secret jungle where he writes and hides — 

Though no exploring foot has e'er upstirred 



114 BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 

His human elephant's exhaustless herd. 

Go, bring his blood ! We'll drink it — letting fall 

A due libation to the gods of Gall. 

On second thought, the gods ma}^ have it all. 



ONK AND ONK ARE TWO 

THE) trumpet sounded and the dead 
Came forth from earth and ocean, 
And Pickering arose and sped 
Aloft with wobbling motion. 

' What makes him fl}^ lop-sided ? " cried 

A soul of the elected. ' 
* One ear was wax, " a rogue replied, 
" And isn't resurrected." 

Below him on the pitted plain. 

By his abandoned hollow, 
His hair and teeth tried all in vain 

The rest of him to follow. 

Saint Peter, seeing him ascend, 
Came forward to the wicket, 

And said : ' ' My mutilated friend, 
I'll thank j^ou for 3^our ticket." 

' The Call,^' said Pickering, his hand 
To reach the latch extended. 
Said Peter, affable and bland : 
' ' The free-list is suspended — 



BLACK BEETLES LN AMBER 115 

' What claim have you that's valid here? " 
That ancient vilifier 
Reflected ; then, with look austere, 
Replied : " I am a liar." 

Said Peter: "That is simple, neat 

And candid Anglo-Saxon, 
But — well, come in, and take a seat 

Up there b}^ Colonel Jackson." 



A^ 



MONTAGUE LEVERSON 

S some enormous violet that towers 

Colossal o 'er the heads of lowlier flowers- 
Its giant petals royally displayed, 
And casting half the landscape into shade ; 
Delivedng its odors, like the blows 
Of some strong slugger, at the public nose ; 
Pride of two Nations — for a single State 
Would scarce sufiice to sprout a plant so great ; 
So Eeverson's humility, outgrown 
The meaner virtues that he deigns to own. 
To the high skies its great corolla rears, 
O'ertopping all he has except his ears. 



ii6 BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 



THE WOFUL TALK OF MR. PETERS 

ISHOUIvD like, good friends, to mention the dis- 
aster which befell 
Mr. William Perry Peters, of the town of Muscatel, 
Whose fate is full of meaning, if correctl}^ under- 
stood — 
Admonition to the haught3% consolation to the good. 

It happened in the hot snap which we recently in- 
curred, 

When 'twas warm enough to carbonize the feathers 
of a bird, 

And men exclaimed : "By Hunky ! ' ' who were bad 
enough to swear. 

And pious persons supervised their adjectives with 
care. 

Mr. Peters was a pedagogue of honor and repute, 
His learning comprehensive, multifarious, minute. 
It was commonly conceded in the section whence he 

came 
That the man who played against him needed 

knowledge of the game. 

And some there were who whispered, in the town 
of Muscatel, 

That besides the game of Draw he knew Orthog- 
raphy as well ; 



BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 117 

Though the school directors, frigidly contemning 

that as stuff, 
Thought that Draw (and maj^be Spelling, if it 

pleased him) was enough. 

Withal, he was a haught}^ man — indubitably great, 
But too vain of his attainments and his power in de- 
bate. 
His mien was contumelious to men of lesser gift : 
" It's only me,'' he said, "can give the human mind 
a lift. 

" Before a proper audience, if ever I've a chance. 
You'll see me chipping in, the cause of Learning to 

advance. 
Just let me have a decent chance to back my mental 

hand 
And I'll come to center lightly in a way they'll un- 
derstand. " 

Such was William Perr3' Peters, and I feel a poign- 
ant sense 

Of grief that I'm unable to employ the present 
tense ; 

But Providence disposes, be our scheming what it 
ma}^ 

And disposed of Mr. Peters in a cold, regardless 
way. 

It occurred in San Francisco, whither Mr. Peters 

came 
In the cause of Education, feeling still the holy 

flame 



ii8 BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 

Of ambition to assist in lifting up the human mind 
To a higher plane of knowledge than its Architect 
designed. 

He attended the convention of the pedagogic host : 

He was first in the Pavilion, he was last to leave 
his post. 

For days and days he narrowl}^ observed the Chair- 
man's eye, 

His efforts ineffectual to catch it on the fl}-. 

The blessed moment came at last : the Chairman 
tipped his head. 
" The gentleman from ah — um — er," that fimctionary 
said. 
The gentleman from ah — um — er reflected with a 
grin: 
" They'll know me better by-and-by, when I'm 
a-chipping in." 

So William Perry Peters mounted cheerfully his 

feet— 
And straightway was aglow with an incalculable 

heat I 
His face was as effulgent as a human face could be, 
And caloric emanated from his whole periphery ; 

For he felt himself the focus of non-Muscatelish 

eyes. 
And the pain of their convergence was a terror and 

surprise. 



BLACK BEETLES IN A3TBEA' T19 

As with pitiless impaction all their heat-waves on 

on him broke 
He was seen to be evolving awful quantities of 

smoke ! 

" Put him out ! " cried all in chorus ; but the mean- 
ing wasn't clear 
Of that succoring suggestion to his obfuscated ear ; 
And it notably augmented his incinerating glow 
To regard himself excessive, or in any way de trop. 

Gone was all his wild ambition to lift up the human 

mind ! — 
Gone the words he w^ould have uttered ! — gone the 

thought that lay behind ! 
For "words that burn'' maj' be consumed in a 

superior flame, 
And " thoughts that breathe" may breathe their 

last, and die a death of shame. 

He'd known himself a shining light, but never had 

he known 
Himself so very luminous as now he knew he shone. 
A pillar, I, of fire," he'd said, "to guide my race 

will be;" 
And now that very inconvenient thing to him was 

he. 

He stood there all irresolute ; the seconds went and 

came ; 
The minutes passed and did but add fresh fuel to 

his flame. 



o BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 

How long he stood he knew not — 'twas a century 

or more — 
And then that incandescent man levanted for the 

door ! 

He darted like a comet from the building to the 

stieet, 
Where Fahrenheit attested ninet^^-five degrees of 

heat. 
Vicissitudes of climate make the tenure of the 

breath 
Precarious, and William V^xxy Peters froze to death ! 



TWIN UNWORTHIES 

YE parasites that to the rich men stick, 
As to the fattest sheep the thrifty tick — 
Kd'ard to Stanford and to Crocker Ben 
(To Ben and Ed'ard mau}^ meaner men, 
And lice to these) — who do the kind of work 
That thieves would have the honesty to shirk — 
Whose wages are that your employers own 
The fat that reeks upon your every bone 
And deigns to ask (the flattery how sweet !) 
About its health and how it stands the heat, — 
Hail and farewell ! I meant to write about you, 
But, no, m}^ page is cleaner far without you. 



BLACK' JiEETLES IN AMBER 



ANOTHER PI<AN 

EDITOR OWEN, of San Jose, 
Commonly known as *'our friend J. J.' 
Weary of scribbling for daily bread, 
Weary of writing what nobody read. 
Slept one day at his desk and dreamed 
That an angel before him stood and beamed 
With compassionate eyes upon him there. 

Editor Owen is not so fair 
In feature, expression, form or limb 
But glances like that are familiar to him; 
And so, to arrive by the shortest route 
At his visitor's will he said, simply: " Toot. 
" Editor Owen," the angel said, 
" Scribble no more for your daily bread. 

Your intellect staggers and falls and bleeds, 



Weary of writing what nobody reads. 
Eschew now the quill — in the coming years 
Homilize man through his idle ears. 
Go lecture ! " "Just what I intended to do," 
Said Owen. The angel looked pained and flew 

Editor Owen, of San Jose, 
Commonly known as "our friend J. J." 
Scribbling no more to supply his needs. 
Weary of writing what nobody reads. 
Passes of life each golden year 
Speaking what nobody comes to hear. 



BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 



A POLITICAL APOSTATE 

GOOD friend, it is with deep regret I note 
The latest, strangest turning of your coat ; 
Though any way you wear that mental clout 
The seamy side seems always to be out. 
Who could have thought that 3^ou would e'er sustai 
The Southern shotgun's arbitrary reign ! — 
Your sturdy hand assisting to replace 
The broken yoke on a delivered race ; 
The l^allot's purity no more your care, 
With equal privilege to dark and fair. 
To Yesterday a traitor, to To-day 
You're constant but the better to betray 
To-morrow. Your convictions all are naught 
But the wild asses of the world of thought, 
Which, flying mindless o'er the barren plain, 
Perceive at last they've nothing so to gain, 
And, turning penitent upon their track, 
Economize their strength by flying back. 

Ex-champion of Freedom, battle-lunged, 
No more, red-handed, or at least red-tongued, 
Brandish the javelin which by others thrown 
Clove Sambo 's heart to quiver in your own ! 
Confess no more that when his blood was shed, 
And you so sympathetically bled, 



BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 123 

The bow that spanned the mutual cascade 
Was but the promise of a roaring trade 
In offices. Your fingermg now the trigger 
Shows that you knew your Negro was a nigger ! 
Ad hominem this argtcmentum runs : 
Peace ! — let us fire another kind of guns. 

I grant you, friend, that it is very true 
The Blacks are ignorant — and sable, too. 
What then ? One way of two a fool must vote, 
And either way with gentlemen of note 
Whose villain feuds the fact attest too well 
That pedagogues nor vice nor error quell. 
The fiercest controversies ever rage 
When Miltons and Salmasii engage. 
No project wide attention ever drew 
But it disparted all the learned crew. 
As through their group the cleaving line's pro- 
longed 
With fiery combatants each field is thronged. 
In battle-royal they engage at once 
For guidance of the hesitating dunce. 
The Titans on the heights contend full soon — 
On this side Webster and on that Calhoun, 
The monstrous conflagration of their fight 
Startling the day and splendoring the night ! 
Both are unconquerable — one is right. 
Wiirt keep the pigmy, if we make him strong, 
From siding with a giant in the wrong? 
When Genius strikes for error, who's afraid 
To arm poor Folly with a wooden blade ? 
O Rabelais, vou knew it all ! — your good 



[24 BLACK BEETLES JM^f AMBER 

And honest judge (by men misunderstood) 
Knew to be right there was but one device 
Less fallible than ignorance — the dice. 
The time must come — Heaven expedite the da}- ! 
When all mankind shall their decrees obey, 
And nations prosper in their peaceful sway. 



TINKER DICK 

r^ OOD Parson Dickson preached, I'm told, 
^^ A' sermon — ah, 'twas ver}^ old 

And very, very bald I 
'Twas all about — I know not what 
It was about, nor w^hat 'twas not. 
" A Screw Loose ' ' it was called. 

Whatever, Parson Dick, you sa}- , 
The world will get each blessed day 

Still more and more askew. 
And fall apart at last. Great snakes ] 
What skillful tinker ever takes 

His tono:ue to turn a screw? 



BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 125 



BATS IN SUNSHINE 

WELI^, Mr. Kemble, you are called, I think, 
A great divine, and I'm a great profane. 
You as a Congregationalist blink 

Some certain truths that I esteem a gain, 
And drop them in the coffers of my brain, 
Pleased with the pretty music of their chink. 
Perhaps 3^our spiritual wealth is such 
A golden truth or two don't count for much. 

You say that you've no patience with such stuff 

As by Renan is writ, and when you read 
(Why do you read?) have hardly strength enough 
» To hold your hand from flinging the vile screed 

Into the fire. That were a wasteful deed 
Which you'd repent in sackcloth extra rough ; 
For books cost money, and I'm told you care 
To lay up treasures Here as well as There. 

T fear, good, pious soul, that you mistake 
Your thrift for toleration. Never mind : 

Renan in any case would hardly break 
His great, strong, charitable heart to find 
The bats and owls of your myopic kind 

Pained by the light that his ideas make. 

'Tis Truth's best purpose to shine in at holes 

Where cower the Kembles, to confound their souls ! 



126 BLACK BEETLES L\ AMBER 



A WORD TO THE UNWISE 

[Charles Main, of the firm of INIaiii & Winchester, has ordered 
a grand mausoleum for his plot in Mountain View Cemetery. — 
City Newspapcr-I 

CHARLES MAIN, of Main & Winchester, attend 
With friendly ear the chit-chat of a friend 
Who knows you not, yet knows that yon and he 
Travel two roads that have a common end. 

We journey forward through the time allowed, 
I humbly bending, 3^ou erect and proud. 

Our heads alike will stable soon the worm — • 
The one that's lifted, and the one that's bowed. 

You in 3^our mausoleum shall repose, 
I where it pleases Him who sleep bestows ; 
What matter whether one so little worth 
Shall stain the marble or shall feed the rose ? 

Charles Main, I had a friend who died one day, 
A metal casket held his honored clay. 

Of Cyclopean architecture stood 
The splendid vault where he was laid away. 

A dozen years, and lo ! the roots of grass 
Had burst asunder all the joints ; the brass, 



BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 127 

The gilded ornaments, the carven stones 
Lay tumbled all together in a mass. 

A dozen years ! That taxes your belief. 
Make it a thousand if the time's too brief. 

'Twill be the same to 3^ou ; when you are dead 
You cannot even count 3'our days of grief. 

Suppose a pompous monument 3^ou raise 
Till on its peak the solar splendor blaze 

While yet about its base the night is black ; 
But will it give your glory length of days ? 

Say, when beneath your rubbish has been thrown, 
Some rogue to reputation all unknown — 

Men's backs being turned — should lift his thiev- 
ing hand, 
Efface your name and substitute his own. 

Whose then would be the monument? To whom 
Would be the fame ? Forgotten in your gloom, 

Your very name forgotten — ah, my friend, 
The name is all that's rescued by the tomb. 

For memory of worth and work we go 
To other records than a stone can show. 

These lacking, naught remains ; with these 
The stone is needless for the world will know. 

Then build your mausoleum if you must. 
And creep into it with a perfect trust ; 

But in the twinkling of an e3'e the plow 
Shall pass without obstruction through your dust. 



128 BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 

Another movement of the pendulum, 
And, lo ! the desert-haunting wolf shall come, 
And, seated on the spot, shall howl by night 
O'er rotting cities, desolate and dumb. 



ON THE PLATFORM 

WHEN Dr. Bill Bartlett stepped out of the hum 
Of Mammon's distracting and wearisome strife 
To stand and deliver a lecture on " Some 

Conditions of Intellectual Life, ' ' 
I cursed the offender who gave him the hall 
To lecture on any conditions at all ! 

But he rose with a fire divine in his eye, 

Haranguing with endless abundance of breath, 

Till I slept ; and I dreamed of a gibbet reared high, 
And Dr. Bill Bartlett was dressing for death. 

And I thought in my dream: "These conditions, no 
doubt, 

Are bad for the life he was talking about." 

So I cried (pray remember this all was a dream) : 

'^ Get off of the platform !— it isn't the kind ! " 

But he fell through the trap, with a jerk at the beam, 

And wiggled his toes to unburden his mind. 
And, O, so bewitching the thoughts he advanced. 
That I clung to his ankles, attentive, entranced ! 



BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 129 



A DAMPENED A_RDOR 

THE Chinatown at Bakersfield 
Was blazing bright and high ; 
The flames to water would not yieM, 
Though torrents drenched the sky 
And drowned the ground for miles around— 
The houses were so dry. 

Then rose an aged preacher man 

Whom all did much admire, 
Who said : * ' To force on you my plan 

I truly don't aspire, 
But streams, it seems, might quench these beams 

If turned upon the fire." 

The fireman said : '' This hoary wight 
His folly dares to thrust 

On lis I 'Twere w^ell he felt our might- 
Nay, he shall feel our must ! ' ' 

With jet of wet and small regret 
They laid that old man's dust. 



ADAIR WEECKER, POET 

The Swan of Avon died — the Swan 
Of Sacramento' 11 soon be gone ; 
And when his death-song he shall coo, 
Stand back, or it will kill you too. 



I30 BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 



TO A WORD-WARRIOR 

FRANK PIXIvEY, you, who kiss the hand 
That strove to cut the countr3^'s throat, 
Cannot forgive the hands that smote 
Applauding in a distant land, — 

Applauding carelessly, as one 

The weaker willing to befriend 

Until the quarrel's at an end. 
Then learn by whom it was begun. 

When North was pitted against South 

Non-combatants on either side 

In calculating fury vied. 
And fought their foes by word of mouth. 

That devil's-camisade you led 
With formidable feats of tongue. 
Upon the battle's rear you hung — 

With Samson's weapon slew the dead ! 

So hot the ardor of 3^our soul 
That ever}^ fierce civilian came, 
His torch to kindle at j^our flame, 

Or have you blow his cooling coal. 

Men prematurel}^ left their beds 
And sought the gelid bath — -so great 
The heat and splendor of your hate 

Of Englishmen and "Copperheads." 



ULACK BEETLES IN AMBER 131 

King Liar of deceitful men, 

For imposition doubly armed ! 

The patriots whom your speaking charmed 
You stung to madness with your pen. 

There was a certain journal here, 
Its English owner growing rich — 
Your hand the treason wrote for which 

A mob cut short its curst career. 

If, Pixley, you had not the brain 
To know the true from false, or you 
To Truth had courage to be true, 

And loyal to her perfect reign ; 

If you had not your powers arrayed 
To serve the wrong by tricksy speech, 
Nor pushed yourself within the reach 

Of retribution's accolade, 

I had not had the will to go 

Outside the olive-bordered path 

Of peace to cut the birch of wrath, 
And strip your body for the blow. 

Behold how dark the war-clouds rise 

About the mother of our race ! 

The lightnings gild her tranquil face 
And glitter in her patient eyes. 

Her children throng the hither flood 

And lean intent above the beach. 

Their beating hearts inhibit speech 
With stifling tides of English blood. 



132 BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 

' * Their skies, but not their hearts, Ihe^^ change 
Who go in ships across the sea" — 
Through al' centuries to be 
The strange new land will still be strange. 

The Island Mother holds in gage 
The souls of sons she never saw ; 
Superior to law, the law 

Of s}' mpathetic heritage. 

Forgotten now the foolish reign 

Of wrath which sundered trivial ties. 
A soldier's sabre vainly tries 

To cleave a spiritual chain. 

The iron in our blood affines, 

Though fratricidal hands may spill. 
Shall Hate be throned on Bunker Hill, 

Yet Love abide at Seven Pines ? 



A CULINARY CANDIDATE 

A cook adorned with paper cap, 

Or waiter wnth a tray, 
May be a worthy kind of chap 

In his way, 
But when we want one for Recorder, 
Then, Mr. Walton, take our order. 



BLACK UEETLES IX ^Ll/L'ER 



I3J 



THE OLEOMARGARINE MAN 

i^NCE — in the county of Marin, 
^^ Where milk is sold to purchase gin- 
Renowned for butter and renowned 
For fourteen ounces to the pound — 
A bull stood watching ever>^ turn 
Of Mr. Wilson with a churn, 
As that deigning worthy stalked 
About him, eying as he walked. 
El Toro's sleek and silken hide, 
His neck, his flank and all beside ; 
Thinking wath secret joy : "I'll spread 
That mammal on a slice of bread ' " 

Soon Mr. Wilson's keen concern 
To get the creature in his churn 
Unhorsed his caution — made him blind 
To the fell vigor of bullkind, 
Till, filled with valor to the teeth. 
He drew his dasher from its sheath 
And bravely brandished it ; the while 
He smiled a dark, portentous smile ; 
A deep, sepulchral smile ; a wide 
And open smile, which, at his side. 
The churn to copy vainly tried ; 
A smile so like the dawn of doom 
That all the field was palled in gloom. 
And all the trees within a mile. 



134 BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 

As tribute to that awful smile, 
Made haste, with loyalty discreet. 
To fling their shadows at his feet. 
Then rose his battle-cry : '* I'll spread 
That mammal on a slice of bread ! " 

To such a night the day had turned 

That Taurus dimly was discerned. 

He wore so meek and grave an air 

It seemed as if, engaged in prayer 

This thunderbolt incarnate had 

No thought of anything that's bad : 

This concentrated earthquake stood 

And gave his mind to being good. 

Lightly and low he drew his breath— 

This magazine of sudden death ! 

All this the thrifty Wilson's glance 

Took in, and, crying, "Now's my chance!** 

Upon the bull he sprang amain 

To put him in his churn. Again 

Rang out his battle-yell : *' I'll spread 

That mammal on a slice of bread ! ' ' 

Sing, Muse, that battle-royal — sing 
The deeds that made the region ring, 
The blows, the bellowing, the cries, 
The dust that darkened all the skies, 

The thunders of the contest, all 

Nay, none of these things did befall. 
A yell there was — a rush — no more : 
Kl Toro, tranquil as before, 
Still stood there basking in the sun, 



BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 135 

Nor of his legs had shifted one — 
Stood there and conjured up his cud 
And meekly munched it. Scenes of blood 
Had little charm for him. His head 
He merel}^ nodded as he said : 
I've spread that butterman upon 
A slice of Southern Oregon." 



GENESIS 

GOD said, *'Eet there be Crime," and the com- 
mand 
Brought Satan, leading Stoneman by the hand. 
\Vh3% that's Stupidity, not Crime," said God — 
Bring what I ordered." Satan with a nod 
Replied, "This is one element — when I 
The other — Opportunity — supply 
In just equivalent, the two'll affine 
And in a chemical embrace combine 
And Crime result — for Crime can only be 
Stupiditate of Opportunity." 
So leaving Stoneman (not as yet endowed 
With soul) in special session on a cloud, 
Nick to his sooty laboratory went, 
Returning soon with t'other element. 
Here's Opportunity," he said, and put 
Pen, ink, and paper down at Stoneman's foot. 
He seized them — Heaven was filled with fires and 

thunders, 
And Crime was added to Creation's wonders ! 



i-,6 BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 



LLEWEIvLEN POWKLI. 

VIIylyAIN, when the word is spoken, 
And your chains at last are broken 

When the gibbet's chilling shade 
Ceases darkly to enfold you, 
And the angel who enrolled you 

As a master of the trade 
Of assassination sadl}^ 

Blots the record he- has made, 
And your name and title paints 
In the calendar of saints ; 
When the devils, dancing madly 
In the midmost Hell, are ver}^ 
Multitudinously merry — 
Then beware, beware, beware ! — 
Nemesis is everywhere ! 
You shall hear her at 3'our back. 

And, 3^our hunted visage turning. 

Fancy that her eyes are burning 
Like a tiger's on your track ! 
You shall hear her in the breeze 
Whispering to summer trees. 
You shall hear her calling, calling 

To your spirit through the storm 

When the giant billows form 
And the splintered lightning, falling 
Down the heights of Heaven, appalling, 
Splendors all the tossing seas ! 
On your bed at night reclining. 



BLACK BEETLES AV AMBER 137 

Stars into your chamber shining 

As they roll around the Pole, 
None their purposes divining, 

Shall appear to search your soul, 
And to gild the mark of Cain 
That burns into your tortured brain ! 
And the dead man's eyes shall ever 

Meet your own wherever you, 

Desperate, shall turn you to, 
And you shall escape them never ! 

By your heritage of guilt ; 
By the blood that 3^ou have spilt ; 
By the I^aw that you have broken ; 
By the terrible red token 

That you bear upon your brow • 
By the awful sentence spoken 

And irrevocable vow 
Which consigns you to a living 
Death and to the unforgiving 
Furies who avenge your crime 
Through the periods of time ; 
By that dread eternal doom 
Hinted in your future's gloom, 

As the flames infernal tell 
Of their power and perfection 
In their wavering reflection 

On the battlements of Hell ; 
By the mercy you denied, 

I condemn your guilty soul 
In 3^our body to abide, 

lyike a serpent in a hole ! 



138 BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 



O 



THE SUNSET GUN, 

FF Santa Cruz the western wave 
Was crimson as with blood : 
The sun was sinking to his grave 
Beneath that angry flood. 



Sir Walter Turnbull, l)rave and stoutj 
Then shouted, " Ho ! lads ; run — 

The powder and the ball bring out 
To fire the sunset gun. 

That punctual orb did ne'er omit 

To keep, by land or sea, 
Its every engagement ; it 

Shall never wait for me." 

Behold the black-mouthed cannon stand. 
Ready with charge and prime. 

The lanyard in the gunner's hand. 
Sir Walter w^aits the time. 

The glowing orb sinks in the sea, 

And clouds of steam aspire, 
Then fade, and the horizon's free. 

Sir Walter thunders : " Fire ! " 

The gunner pulls — the lanyard parts 

And not a sound ensues. 
The beating of ten thousand hearts 

Was heard at Santa Cruz ! 



BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 139 

Off Santa Cruz the western wave 

Was crimson as with blood ; 
The sun, with visage stern and grave, 

Came back from out the flood. 



THE "VIDUATE DAME" 

^npIS the widow of Thomas Blythe, 
J- And she goeth upon the spree, 
And red are cheeks of the bystanders 
For her acts are light and free. 

In a seven-ounce costume 

The widow^ of Thomas Blythe, 
Y-perched high on the window ledge, 

The difficult can-can tryeth. 

Ten constables they essay 

To bate the dame's halloing. 
With the wadow of Thomas Blythe 

Their hands are overflowing. 

And they cry : " Call the National Guard 

To quell this parlous muss — 
For all of the widows of Thomas Blythe 

Are upon the spree and us ! " 

O long shall the eerie tale be told 
By that posse's surviving tithe ; 

And w^ith tears bedewed he'll sing this rude 
Ballad of the widow of Thomas Blythe. 



140 BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 



FOUR OF A KIND 

ROBERT F. MORROW 

DEAR man ! although a stranger and a foe 
To soft affection's humanizing glow ; 
Although untaught how manly hearts ms.y throb 
With more desires than the desire to rob ; 
Although as void of tenderness as wit, 
And owning nothing soft but Maurice Schmitt ; 
Although polluted, shunned and in disgrace, 
You fill me with a passion to embrace ! 
Attentive to your look, your smile, your beck, 
I watch and wait to fall upon your neck. 
Ivord of my love, and idol of my hope. 
You are m^^ Valentine, and I'm 

A Rope. 

AI.FRED CI.ARKE JR. 

Illustrious son of an illustrious sire — 

Entrusted with the duty to cry " Fire ! " 

And call the engines out, exert your power 

With care. When, looking from your lofty tower. 

You see a ruddy light on every wall. 

Pause for a moment ere you sound the call : 

It ma}^ be from a fire, it may be, too. 

From good men's blushes when they think of j^ou. 

JUDGE RUTLEDGE 
Sultan of Stupids ! with enough of brains 
To go indoors in all unconimon rains. 



BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 14- 

But not enough to stay there when the storm 
Is past. When all the world is dry and warm, 
In irking comfort, lamentably gay, 
Keeping the evil tenor of your way, 
You walk abroad, sweet, beautiful and smug, 
And Justice hears you with her wonted shrug, 
I^ifts her broad bandage half-an-inch and keeps 
One eye upon you while the other weeps. 

^V. H. L. BARNES 

Happy the man who sin's proverbial wage 

Receives on the instalment plan — in age. 

For him the bulldog pistol's honest bark 

Has naught of terror in its blunt remark. 

He looks with calmness on the gleaming steel — 

If e'er it touched his heart he did not feel : 

Superior hardness turned its point away, 

Though urged by fond affinity to stay ; 

His bloodless Veins ignored the futile stroke. 

And moral mildew kept the cut in cloak. 

Happy the man, I say, to whom the wage 

Of sin has been commuted into age. 

Yet not quite happy — hark, that horrid cry ! — 

His cruel mirror wounds him in the eye ! 



RECONCILIATION 

Stanford and Huntington, so long at outs. 
Kissed and made up. If 3^ou have any doubts 
Dismiss them, for I saw them do it, man; 
And then — why, then I clutched my purse and ran. 



142 BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 



A VISION OF CLIMATE 

T DREAMED that I was poor and sick and sad, 
^ Broken in hope and wear}^ of ni}' life ; 
I\Iy ventures all miscarrying — naught had 

For all my labor in the heat and strife. 

And in m^^ heart some certain thoughts were rife 
Of an unsummoned exit. As I lay 

Considering \i\y bitter state, I cried : 
" Alas ! that hither I did ever stra}-. 

Better in some fair country to have died 
Than live in such a land, where Fortune never 
(Unless he be successful) crowns Endeavor." 

Then, even as I lamented, lo ! there came 

A troop of Presences — I knew not whence 
Nor what the}- were : thought cannot rightly name 
What's known through spiritual evidence, 
Reported not b}^ gross material sense. 
" Why come 3'e here?" I seemed to cry (though 
naught 
My sleeping tongue did utter) to the first — 
* ' What are ye ? — with what woful message fraught ? 
Ye have a ghastly look, as ye had burst 
Some sepulcher in memory. Weird creatures, 
I'm sure I'd know 3'ou if j^e had but features." 

Some subtle organ noted the reply 
(Inaudible to ear of flesh the tone) : 
*' The Finest Climate in the World am I, 



BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 143 

From Siski3^ou to San Diego known — 

From the Sierra to the sea. The zone 
Called semi-tropical I've pulled about 

And placed it where it does most good, I trust. 
I shake my never-failing bounty out 

Alike upon the just and the unjust.' ' 
That's very true," said I, "but when 'tis shaken 
My share by the unjust is ever taken." 

Permit me," it resumed, " now to present 
My eldest son, the Champagne Atmosphere, 

And others to rebuke your discontent — 

The Mammoth Squash, Strawberr}^ All the Year, 
The fair No Lightning — flashing only here — 

The Wholesome Earthquake and Italian Sky, 
With its Unstriking Sun; and last, not least. 

The Compos Mentis Dog. Now, ingrate, try 
To bring a better stomach to the feast : 

When Nature makes a dance and pays the piper, 

To be unhappy is to be a viper ! " 

Why, yet," said I, "wath all 3'our blessings fine 
(And Heaven forbid that I should speak them ill) 

I 3^et am poor and sick and sad. Ye shine 
With more of splendor than of heat : for still. 
Although ni}^ wall is warm, my bones are chill." 

Then warm you with enthusiasm's blaze — 

Fortune waits not on toil," they cried; "Othen 

Join the w41d chorus clamoring our praise — 

Throw up your beaver and throw down you pen ! ' ' 

Begone!" I shouted. They bewent, a-smirking. 

And I, awakening, fell straight a-working. 



144 BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 



A ''MASS" MEETING 

TT was a solemn rite as e'er 
J- Was seen by mortal man. 
The celebrants, the people there, 
Were all Republican. 

There Estee bent his grizzled head, 

And General Dimond, too. 
And one — 'twas Reddick, some one said^ 

Though no one clearly knew. 

I saw the priest, white-robed and tall 

(Assistant, Father Stow) — 
He was the pious man men call 

Dan Burns of Mexico. 

Ah, 'twas a high and holy rite 
As any one could swear. 
" What does it mean ? " I asked a wight 
Who knelt apart in prayer. 

' ' A mass for the repose, ' ' he said, 

" Of Colonel Markham's" "What, 

Is gallant Colonel Markham dead ? 
'Tis sad, 'tis sad, God wot ! " 

" A mass " — repeated he, and rose 
To go and kneel among 
The worshipers — "for the repose 
Of Colonel Markham's tonsrue." 



BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 145 



FOR PRESIDENT, LELAND STANFORD 

MAHOMET STANFORD, with covetous stare, 
Gazed on a vision surpassingly fair : 
Far on the desert's remote extreme 
A mountain of ^old with a mellow gleam 
Reared its high pinnacles into the sk}^ 
The work of viiyage to delude the eye. 
Pixley Pasha, at the Prophc'.'s feet 
Piously licking them, swearing them sweet. 
Ventured, observing his master's glance, 
To beg that he order the mountain's advance, 
Mahomet Stanford exerted his will. 
Commanding : "In Allah's name, hither, hill ! " 
Never an inch the mountain came. 
Mahomet Stanford, with face aflame, 
Lifted his foot and kicked, alack ! 
Pixley Pasha on the end of the back. 
Mollified thus and smiling free, 
He said : " Since the mountain won't come to me, 
I'll go to the mountain.' ' With infinite pains, 
Camels in caravans, negroes in trains. 
Warriors, workmen, women, and fools, 
Food and water and mining tools 
He gathered about him, a mighty array. 
And the journey began at the close of day. 
All night they traveled — at early dawn 



146 BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 

Many a wearisome league had gone. 
Morning broke fair with a golden sheen, 
Mountain, alas, was nowhere seen ! 
Mahomet Stanford pounded his breast, 
Pixley Pasha he thus addressed : 
*' Dog of mendacit}^, cheat and slave. 
May jackasses sing o'er 3^0 ur grandfather' s grave 



FOR MAYOR 

OABNER DOBLB— whose "catarrhal name" 
Budd of that ilk might envy — 'tis a rough 
Rude thing to say, but it is plain enough 
Your name is to be sneezed at : its acclaim 
Will ' * fill the speaking trump of future fame ' ' 
With an impeded utterance — a puff 
Suggesting that a pinch or two of snuff 
Would clear the tube and somewhat disinflame. 
Nay, Abner Doble, j^ou'll not get from me 
My voice and influence : I'll cheer instead. 

Some other man ; for when my voice ascends a 
Tall pinnacle of praise, and at high C 

Sustains a chosen name, it shan't be said 
My influence is naught but influenza. 



BLACK JJEETLES IN AMBER 147 



A CHEATING PREACHER 

MUNHAIylv, to save 1113^ soul 3^011 bravel}^ try, 
Although, to save my soul, I can't s^y why, 
'Tis naught to you, to me however much — 
Why, bless it ! 3^ou might save a million such 
Yet lose your own ; for still the *' means of grace " 
That you employ to turn us from the place 
By the arch-enemy of souls frequented 
Are those which to ensnare us he invented ! 
I do not say 3^ou utter falsehoods — I 
Would scorn to give to ministers the lie : 
They cannot fight — their calling has estopped it. 
True, I did not persuade them to adopt it. 
But, Munhall, wdien you say the Devil dwells 
In all the breasts of all the infidels — 
Making a lot of individual Hells 
In gentlemen instinctively who shrink 
From thinking an3'thing that you could think, 
You talk as I should if some world I trod 
Where lying is acceptable to God. 
I don't at all object — forbid it Heaven ! — 
That your discourse 3'ou temperatel3^ leaven 
W^ith airy reference to wicked souls 
Cursing impenitent on glowing coals, 
Nor quarrel with 3'our fancy, blithe and fine. 
Which represents the wickedest as mine. 
Each ornament of st3de m3^ spirit eases : 



I4S BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 

The subject saddens, but the manner pleases. 

But when 3^ou "deal damnation round" 'twere sweet 

To think hereafter that you did not cheat. 

Deal, and let all accept what you allot 'em. 

But, blast you ! you are dealing from the bottom ! 



A CROCODILE 

NAY, Peter Robertson, 'tis not for yoM 
To blubber o'er Max Taubles for he's dead. 
By Heaven ! my hearty, if you onh^ knew 
How better is a grave-worm in the head 
Than brains like yours — how far more decent, too, 

A tomb in far Corea than a bed 
Where Peter lies with Peter, you would covet 
His happier state and, dying, learn to love it. 

In the recesses of the silent tomb 

No Maunderings of yours disturb the peace. 
Your mental bag-pipe, droning like the gloom 

Of Hades audible, perforce must cease 
From troubling further ; and that crack o' doom. 

Your mouth, shaped like a long bow, shall release 
In vain such shafts of wit as it can utter — 
The ear of death can't even hear them flutter. 



BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 149 



THE AMERICAN PARTY 

OH, MARCUS D. BORUCK, me hearty, 
I sympathize wicl ye, poor lad ! 
A man that's shot out of his party 
Is mighty onlucky, bedad ! 
An' the sowl o' that man is sad. 

But, Marcus, gossoon, ye desarve it— 
Ye know for j^erself that 3^e do, 

For ye j'ined not intendin' to sarve it, 
But hopin' to make it sarve 3^ou, 
Though the roll of its members wuz two. 

The other wuz Pixley, an' '''Surely," 
Ye said, "he's a kite that wuU sail." 

An' so ye hung till him securel}-, 
Enactin' the role of a tail. 
But there wuzn 't the ghost of a gale ! 

But the party to-day has behind it 

A powerful backin', I'm told ; 
For j ust enough Irish have j ' ined it 

(An' I'm m'anin' to be enrolled) 

To kick ye out into the cold. 

It's hard on ye, darlint, I'm thinkin' — 
So 3'oung — so American, too — 



I50 BLACK BEETLES TN AMBER 

Wid bypassers grinnin' an' winkin', 
An' sajnn', wid ref rence to yow : 
* * Get onto the murtlierin' Joo ! ' ' 

Republicans never will take ye — 
They had ye for many a 3^ear ; 

An' Dimocrats — angels forsake ye !— • 
If ever ye come about here 
We'll brand ye and scollop 3^er ear! 



UNCOLONELED 

THOUGH war-signs fail i:i time of peace, the^^ say 
Two awful portents gloom the public mind : 
All Mexico is arming for the fray 

And Colonel Mark McDonald has resigned ! 

We know not by what instinct he divined 
The coming trouble — may be, like the steed 

Described by Job, he smelled the fight afar. 
Howe'er it be, he left, and for that deed 

Is an aspirant to the G. A. R. 
When cannon flame along the Rio Grande 
A citizen's commission will be handy. 



BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 151 



THE GATES AJAR 

^ I ^HE Day of Judgment spread its glare 
-^ O'er continents and seas. 
The graves cracked open everywhere. 
Like pods of earl}^ peas. 

Up to the Court of Heaven sped 

The souls of all mankind ; 
Republicans were at the head 

And Democrats behind. 

Reub. Lloyd was there before the tube 

Of Gabriel could call : 
The dead in Christ rise first, and Reub. 

Had risen first of all. 

He sat beside the Throne of Flame 

As, to the trumpet's sound, 
Four statesmen of the Party came 

And ranged themselves around — 

Pure spirits shining like the sun, 
From taint and blemish free — 

Great William Stow was there for one, 
And George A. Knight for three. 



152 BLACK BEETLES IN AlilBER 

Souls less indubitably white 

Approached with anxious air. 
Judge Blake at head of them by right 

Of having been a Mayor. 

His ermine he had donned again, 

lyong laid awaj^ in gums. 
'Twas soiled a trifle by the stains 

Of politicians' thumbs. 

Then Knight addressed the Judje of Heaven 
'* Your Honor, would it trench 
On custom here if Blake were given 
A seat upon the Bench ? ' ' 

'Twas done. "Tom Shannon ! " Peter cried. 

He came, without ado. 
In forma pauperis was trieJ, 

And was acquitted, too 1 

Stow rose, remarking : "I concur.'* 

I^loyd added : "That suits tis. 
I move Tom's nomination, sir. 

Be made unanimous." 



BLACK BEETLES IN AMIU'.K 153 



TIDINGS OF GOOD 

OIvD Nick from his place of last resort 
Came up and looked the world over. 
He saw how the grass of the good was short 
And the wicked lived in clover. 

And he gravely said : *' This is all, all wrong, 

And never by me intended. 
If to me the power should ever belong 

I shall have this thing amended." 

He looked so solemn and good and wise 

As he made this observation 
That the men who heard him believed their eyes 

Instead of his reputation. 

So the}' bruited the matter about, and eacli 

Reported the words as nearly 
As memory served — with additional speech. 

To bring out the meaning clearly. 

The consequence was that none understood, 

And the wildest rumors started 
Of something intended to help the good 

And injure the evil-hearted. 



154 BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 



Then Robert Morrow was seen to smile 
With a bright and lively joy ance. 

A man," said he, " that is free from guile 
Will now b3 free from anno^^ance. 



({ 



The Featherstones doubtless will now increase 

And multiply like the rabbits, 
While jailers, deputy sheriffs, police, 

And writers will form good habils. 

The widows more easily robbed will be, 
And no juror will ever heed 'em, 

But open his purse to my eloquent plea 
For securit}^, gain, or freedom." 

When Benson heard of the luck of the good 
(He was eating his dinner) he muttered : 

It cannot help me, for ' tis understood 
My bread is already buttered. 

My plats of surveys are all false, they say, 

But that cannot greatly matter 
To me, for I'll tell the jurors that they 

May lick, if they please, my platter." 



BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 



ARBORICUIvTURE 

[Californians are asking themselves how Joaquin Miller 
will make the trees grow which he proposes to plant in the 
form of a Maltese cross on Goat Island, in San Francisco Bay. 
— New York Graphic. '\ 

YOU may say they won't grow, and say they'll 
decay — 
Say it again till you're sick of the say, 
Get up on your ear, blow your blaring bazoo 
And hire a hall to proclaim it ; and you 
May stand on a stump with a lifted hand 
As a pine ma3^ stand or a redwood stand, 
And stick to your story and cheek it through. 
But I point with pride to the far divide 
Where the Snake from its groves is seen to glide — 
To Mariposa's arboreal suit, 
And the shaggy shoulders of Shasta Butte, 
And the feathered firs of Siskiyou ; 
And I swear as I sit on my marvelous hair — 
I roll my marvelous eyes and swear, 
And sneer, and ask where would your forests be 
To-day if it hadn't been for me ! 
Then I rise tip-toe, with a brow of brass, 
Like a bully boy with an eye of glass ; 
I look at my gum sprouts, red and blue, 
And I say it loud and I say it low : 
" They know their man and you bet they'll grow ! ' ' 



156 BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 



A SII.URIAN HOLIDAY 

^rpis Master Fitch, the editor; 

^ He takes an holida3^ 
Now wherefore, venerable sir, 

So resolutely gay ? 

He lifts his head, he laughs aloud, 
Odzounds ! 'tis drear to see ! 
" Because the Boodle-Scribbler crowd 
Will soon be far from me. 

" Full many a year I've striven well 
To freeze the caitiffs out 
By making this good town a Hell, 
But still they hang about. 

*' They maken mouths and eke they grin 
At the dollar limit game ; 
And they are holpen in that sin 
By many a wicked dame. 

*' In sylvan bowers hence I'll dwell 
My bruised mind to ease. 
Farewell, ye urban scenes, farewell ! 
Hail, unfamiliar trees ! " 

Forth Master Fitch did bravely hie. 

And all the country folk 
Besought him that he come not nigh 

The deadly poison oak ! 



BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 157 

He smiled a cheerful smile (the day 

Was straightway overcast) — 
The poison oak along his way 

Was blighted as he passed ! 



REJECTED 

WHEN Dr. Charles O'Donnell died 
They sank a box wath him inside. 

The plate with his initials three 
Was simply graven — " C. O'D." 

That night two demons of the Pit 
Adown the coal-hole shunted it. 

Ten million million leagues it fell, 
Alighting at the gate of Hell. 

Nick looked upon it with surprise, 
A night-storm darkening his eyes. 

They've sent this rubbish, C. O. D, — 
I '11 never pay a cent ! ' ' said he. 



158 BLA CK BEE TL ES IN A JIBER 



JUDEX JUDICATUS 

JUDGE ARMSTRONG, when the poor have sought 
3'OLir aid, 
To be released from vows that they have made 
In haste, and leisurely repented, j^ou. 
As stern as Rhadamanthus (Minos too, 
And ^acus) have drawn 3^our fierce brows down 
And petrified them with a moral frown ! 
With iron-faced rigor you have made them run 
The gauntlet of publicity — each Hun 
Or Vandal of the public press allowed 
To throw their households open to the crowd 
And bawl their secret bickerings aloud. 
When Wealth before 3^ou suppliant appears. 
Bang ! go the doors and open fly your ears ! 
The blinds are drawn, the lights diminished burn, 
Eest eyes too curious should look and learn 
That gold refines not, sweetens not a life 
Of conjugal brutality and strife — 
That vice is vulgar, though it gilded shine 
Upon the curve of a judicial spine. 
The veiled complainant's w^hispered evidence. 
The plain collusion and the no defense. 
The sealed exhibits and the secret plea, 
The unrecorded and unseen decree, 
The midnight signature and — chink! chink! cJiinJz ! — • 
Na}' , pardon, upright Judge, I did but think 



BLACK JUIETLES IN AM HER 159 

I heard that sound abhorred of honest men ; 
No doubt it was the scratching of your pen. 

O California ! long-enduring land, 
Where Judges fawn upon the Golden Hand, 
Proud of such service to that rascal thing 
As slaves would blush to render to a king- 
Judges, of judgment destitute and heart, 
Of conscience conscious only by the smart 
From the recoil (so insight is enlarged) 
Of duty accidentally discharged ; — 
Invoking still a ' ' song o' sixpence ' ' from 
The Scottish fiddle of each lusty palm, 
Thy Judges, California, skilled to play 
This silent music, through the livelong day 
Perform obsequious before the rich, 
And still the more they scratch the more the}^ itch ! 



OX THE WEDDING OF AN AERONAUT 

Aeronaut, you're fairly caught. 

Despite your bubble's leaven : 
Out of the skies a lady's ej^es 

Have brought you down to Heaven ! 

No more, no more you'll freely soar 

Above the grass and gravel : 
Henceforth j'Ou'U walk — and she will chalk 

The line that j^ou're to travel ! 



i6o BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 



A HASTY INFERENCE 

THE Devil one day, coming up from the Pit, 
All grimy with perspiration, 
Applied to St. Peter and begged he'd admit 
Him a moment for consultation. 

The Saint showed him in where the Master reclined 
On the throne where petitioners sought him ; 

Both bowed, and the Evil One opened his mind 
Concerning the business that brought him : 

*' For ten million years I've been kept in a stew 

Because you have thought me immoral ; 

And though I have had my opinion of you, 

You've had the best end of the quarrel. 

" But now — well, I venture to hope that the past 
With its misunderstandings we'll smother ; 
And 3'OU, sir, and I, sir, be throned here at last 
As equals, the one to the other. " 

" Indeed ! " said the Master (I cannot convey 

A sense of his tone by mere letters) 
" What makes you presume you'll be bidden to stay 

Up here on such terms with your betters ? ' ' 

" Why, sure you can't mean it ! " said Satan. " I've 
seen 
How Stanford and Crocker you've nourished, 



BLA CK BEE TL ES IX AMBER 1 6 1 

And Huntington — bless me ! the three like a green 
Umbrageous great bay-tree have flourished. 

They are fat, they are rolling in gold, they com- 
mand 

All sources and well-springs of power ; 
You've given them houses, you've given them land — 

Before them the righteous all cower. " 

What of that ? " "What of that ? " cried the Father 

of Sin ; 
'' Why, I thought when I saw you were winking 
At crimes such as theirs that perhaps you had been 
Converted to my way of thinking. ' ' 



A VOLUPTUARY 

WHO'S this that lispeth in the thickening throng 
Which crowds to claim distinction in my song ? 
Fresh from "the palms and temples of the South," 
The mixed aromas quarrel in his mouth : 
Of orange blossoms this the lingering gale, 
And that the odor of a spicy tale. 
Sir, in thy pleasure-dome down by the sea 
(No finer one did Kubla Khan decree) 
Where, Master of the Revels, thou dost stand 
With joys and mysteries on either hand, 
Dost keep a poet to report the rites 
And sing the tale of those Elysian nights ? 
Faith, sir, I'd like the place if not too young. 
I'm no great bard, but — I can hold my tongue. 



i62 BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 



AD CATTONUM 

I KNOW not, Mr. Catton, who you are, 
Nor very clearly why ; but you go far 
To show that you are many things beside 
A Chilean Consul with a tempting hide ; 
But what they are I hardly could explain 
Without afflicting you with mental pain. 
Your name (gods ! what a name the muse to woo — 
Suggesting cats, and hinting kittens, too !) 
Points to an origin — perhaps Maltese, 
Perhaps Angoran — where the wicked cease 
From fiddling, and the animals that grow 
The strings that groan to the tormenting bow 
Live undespoiled of their insides, resigned 
To give their name and nature to mankind. 
With Chilean birth your name but poorly tallies ; 
The test is — Did 3'ou ever sell tamales ? 

It matters very little, though, my boy, 

If you're from Chile or from Illinois ; 

You can't, because 3^ou serve a foreign land. 

Spit with impunity on ours, expand, 

Cock-turkeywise, and strut with blind conceit, 

All heedless of the hearts beneath your feet, 

Fling falsehoods as a sower scatters grain 

And, for security, invoke disdain. 

Sir, there are laws that men of sense observe, 

No matter whence they come nor whom they serve- 

The laws of courtesy ; and these forbid 



BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 163 

You to malign, as recently you did, 
As servant of another State, a State 
Wherein your duties all are concentrate ; 
Branding its Ministers as rogues— in short, 
Inviting cuffs as suitable retort. 

Chileno or American, 'tis one — 

Of any land a citizen, or none — 

If like a new Thersites here you rail, 

Loading with libels every western gale, 

You'll feel the cudgel on your scurv}^ hump 

Impinging with a salutary thump. 

'Twill make you civil or 'twill make 3^ou jump ! 



THE NATIONAL GUARDSMAN 

T'M a gorgeous golden hero 
-^ And my trade is taking life. 
Hear the twnttle-twittle-tweero 

Of my sibillating fife 
And the rub-a-dub-a-dum 

Of my big bass drum ! 
I'm an escort strong and bold, 

The Grand Arm 3^ to protect. 
My countenance is cold 

And my attitude erect. 
I'm a Californian Guard 

And my banner flies aloft, 
But the stones are O, so hard ! 

And my feet are O, so soft ! 



i64 BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 



THE BARKING WEASEL 

TT^OU say, John Irish, Mr. Taylor hath 
J^ A painted beard. Quite likely that is true, 
And sure 'tis natural you spend yovcc wrath 

On what has been least merciful to you. 
By Ta^'lor's chin, if I am not mistaken, 
You like a rat have recently been shaken. 

To wear a beard of artificial hue 

May be or this or that, I know not what ; 

But, faith, 'tis better to be black-and-blue 
In beard from dallying with brush and pot 

Than to be so in body from the beating 

That hardy rogues get when detected cheating. 

You're whacked about the mazzard rather more 
Of late than any other man in town. 

Certes your vulnerable back is sore 

And tender, too, your corrigible crown. 

In truth your wdiole periphery discloses 

More vivid colors than a bed of posies ! 

You call it glory ! Put 3^our tongue in sheath ! — 
Scars got in battle, even if on the breast. 

May be a shameful record if, beneath, 
A robber heart a lawless strife attest. 

John Sullivan had wounds, and Paddy Ryan — 

Nay, as to that, even Masten has, and Bryan. 



BLACK BEETLES LN AMBER 165 

'Tis willingl}^ conceded you've a knack 

At holding the attention of the town ; 
The worse for you when you have on your back 

What did not grow there — prithee put it down ! 
For pride kills thrift, and you lack board and lodging, 
Even while the brickbats of renown you're dodging 



A REAR EI.EVATION 

[He can speak with his e^-es, his hands, arms, legs, body — 
nay, with his very bones, for he turned the broad of his back 
upon us in " Conrad," the other night, and his shoulder-blades 
spoke to us a volume of hesitation, fear, submission, despera- 
tion—everything which could haunt a man at the moment of 
inevitable detection.—^ ''Dramatic Critic :''\ 

ONCE Moses (in Scripture the story is told) 
Entreated the favor God's face to behold. 
Compassion divine the petition denied 
Lest vision be blasted and body be fried. 
Yet this much, the Record informs us, took place : 
Jehovah, concealing His terrible face. 
Protruded His rear from behind a great rock, 
And edification ensued wdthout shock. 
So godlike Salvini, lest w^orshipers die. 
Averting the blaze of his withering eye, 
Tempers his terrors and shows to the pack 
Of feeble adorers the broad of his back. 
The fires of their'altars, which paled and declined 
Before him, burn all the more brightly behind. 
O happy adorers, to care not at all 
Where fawning may tickle or lip-service fall ! 



i66 BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 



IN UPPER SAN FRANCISCO 

I HEARD that Heaven was bright and fair. 
And politicians dwelt not there. 



'Twas said by knowing ones that they 
Were in the Elsewhere — so to say. 

So, w^aking from my last long sleep, 
I took my place among the sheep. 

I passed the gate — Saint Peter eyed 
Me sharply as I stepped inside. 

He thought, as afterward I learned, 
That I was Chris, the Unreturned. 

The new Jerusalem — ah me, 
It was a sorry sight to see ! 

The mansions of the blest were there, 
And mostly they were fine and fair ; 

But O, such streets ! — so deep and wide. 
And all unpaved, from side to side ! 

And in a public square there grew 
A blighted tree, most sad to view. 

From off its trunk the bark was ripped- 
Its very branches all were stripped ! 



BLACK BEETLES I.V A^LnER 167 

All angel perched upon the fence 
With all the grace of indolence. 

'' Celestial bird," I cried, in pain, 

' ' What vandal wrought this wreck ? Explain." 

He raised his ej^elids as if tired : 
'' What is a Vandal? " he inquired. 

" This is the Tree of Life. 'Twas stripped 
By Durst and Siebe, who have shipped 

" The bark across the Jordan — see? — 
And sold it to a tannery." 

" Alas," I sighed, " their old-time tricks ! 
That pavement, too, of golden bricks — 

'' They've gobbled that ? " But with a scowl, 
'* You greatl}^ wrong them," said the fowl : 

" 'Twas Gilleran did that, I fear — 
Head of the Street Department here," 

" What ! what I " cried I — '' you let such chaps 
Come here? You've Satan, too, perhaps." 

" We had him, yes, but off he went. 
Yet showed some purpose to repent ; 

" But since your priests and parsons filled 

The place with those their preaching killed" — 



i6S BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 

(Here Siebe passed along with Durst, 
Psalming as if their lungs would burst)— 

' ' He swears his foot no more shall press 
('Tis cloven, an3'how, I guess) 

" Our soil. In short, he's out on strike- 
But devils are not all alike." 

Lo ! Gilleran came down the street, 
Pressing the soil wdth broad, flat feet ! 



NIMROD 

THERE were brave men, some one has truly said, 
Before Atrides (those were mostl}^ dead 
Behind him) and ere you could e'er occur 
Actseon lived, Nimrod and Bahram-Gur. 
In strength and speed and daring they excelled : 
The stag they overtook, the lion felled. 
Ah, yes, great hunters flourished before you, 
And — for Munchausen lived — great talkers too. 
There'll be no more; there's much to kill, but — well, 
Yoti have left nothing in the w^orld to tell ! 



BLACK BEETLES IN AAIBER 169 



CENSOR LITERARUM 

SO, Parson Stebbins, 3'ou've released your chin 
To say that here, and here, we press-folk ail. 
'Tis a great thing an editor to skin 
And hang his faulty pelt upon a nail 
(If over-eared, it has, at least, no tail) 
And, for an admonition against sin. 
Point out its maculations with a rod, 
And act, in short, the gentleman of God. 

'Twere needless cruelty to spoil your sport 

B}^ comment, critical or merely rude ; 
But j^ou, too, have, according to report, 

Despite 3^our posing as a holy dude, 

Imperfect spiritual pulchritude 
For so severe a judge. May't please the court, 
We shall appeal and take our case at once 
Before that higher court, a taller dunce. 

Sir, what werejj/^??^ without the press? What spreads 
The fame of your existence, once a week, 

From the Pacific Mail dock to the Heads, 
Warning the people you're about to wreak 
Upon the human ear your Sunday freak ? — 

Whereat the most betake them to their bed 

Though some prefer to slumber in the pews 

And nod assent to 3'our hypnotic views. 



I70 BLACK BEETLES LN AMBER 

Unhappy man ! can you not .still your tongue 
When (like a luckless brat afflict with worms, 

By cruel fleas intolerably stung, 

Or with a pang in its small lap) it squirms ? 

Still must it vulgarize your feats of lung ? 

No preaching better were, the sun beneath, 

If you had nothing there behind your teeth. 



BORROWED BRAINS 

WRITER folk across the bay 
Take the pains to see a:id say- 
All their upward palms in air : 
Joaquin Miller's cut his hair! " 
Hasten, hasten, writer folk — 
In the gutters rake and poke. 
If by God's exceeding grace 
You m^ay hit upon the place 
Where the barber threw at length 
Samson's literary strength. 
Find it, find it if 3'ou can ; 
Happy the successful man ! 
He has but to put one strand 
In his beaver's inner band 
And his intellect will soar 
As it never did before ! 
While an inch of it remains 
He will noted be for brains, 
And at last ('twill so befall) 
Fit to cease to write at all. 



BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 171 



THE FYGHTYNGK SEVENTH 

IT is the gallant Seventh — 
It fyghteth faste and free ! 
God wot the where it fyghteth 
I ne desyre to be. 

The Gonfalon it flyeth, 
Seeming a Flay me in Sky ; 

The Bugel loud yblowen is, 
Which sayeth, Doe and dye ! 

And (O good Saints defende us 
Agaynst the Woes of Warr) 

Drawn Tongues are flashing deadly 
To smyte the Foeman sore ! 

With divers kinds of Riddance 
The smoaking Earth is wet, 

And all aflowe to seaward goe 
The Torrents wide of Sweat ! 

The Thunder of the Captens, 
And eke the Shouting, mayketh 

Such horrid Din the Soule within 
The boddy of me quayketh ! 

Who fyghteth the bold Seventh ? 

What haughty Power defyes ? 
Their Colonel 'tis they drubben sore, 

And dammcn too his Eyes ! 



172 BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 



tt 



INDICTED 

DEAR Bruner, once we had a little talk 
(That is to szy, 'tv/as I did all the talking) 
About the manner of j'our moral vralh : 

How devious the trail 3-0U n:ade in stalking, 
On level ground, your law-protected game — • 
Another's Dollar ' ' is, I think, its name. 

Yonr crooked course more recentl}^ is not 
So blamable ; for, truly, you have stumbled 

On evil days ; and 'tis your luckless lot 
To traverse spaces (with a spirit humbled, 

Contrite, dejected and divinely sad) 

Where, 'tis confessed, the walking's rather bad. 

Jordan, the song says, is a road (I thought 
, It was a river) that is hard to travel ; 
And Dublin, if you'd find it, must be sought 

Along a highway with more rocks than gravel. 
In difl&culty neither can compete 
With that wherein you navigate your feet. 

As once George Gorham said of Pixley, so 

I say of you : * ' The prison yav/ns before you, 

The turnkey stalks behind ! ' ' Now will you go ? 
Or lag, and let that functionary floor you ? 

To change the metaphor — you seem to be 

Between Judge Wallace and the deep, deep sea ! 



BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER j;^ 



OVER THE BORDER 

O JUSTICE, you have fled, to dwell 
^ In Mexico, unstrangled, 
Lest you should hang as high as — well, 
As Haman dangled. 

(I know not if his cord he twanged, 

Or the King proved forgiving. 
'Tis hard to think of Haman hanged. 
And Haymond living.) 

Yes, as I said : in mortal fear 
To Mexico 3^ou journeyed ; 
For 3^ou were on 3'our trial here, 
And ill attcrneyed. 

The Law had long regarded you 

As an extreme offender. 
Religion looked upon you, too, 
With thoughts untender. 

The Press to you was cold as snow^ 

For sin j^ou'd always call so. 
In Politics you were de trop, 
In Morals also. 

All this is accuratel}^ true 

And, faith ! there might be more said ; 
But — well, to save your thrapple yo:i 
Fled, as aforesaid. 



174 BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 

You're down in Mexico — that's plam 

As that the sun is risen ; 
For Daniel Burns, down there, his chain 

Drags round in prison. 



ONE JUDGE 

WALI^ACE, created on a noble plan 
To show us that a Judge can be a !Man ; 
Through moral mire exhaling mortal stench 
God-guided sw^eet and foot-clean to the Bench ; 
In salutation here and sign I lift 
A hand as free as yours from lawless thrift, 
A heart — ah, would I truly could proclaim 
My bosom lighted with so pure a flame I 
Alas, not love of justice moves my pen 
To praise, or to condemn, m}' fellow men. 
Good will and ill its busy point incite : 
I do but gratify them when I write. 
In palliation, though, I'd humbly state, 
I love the righteous and the wicked hate. 
So, sir, although we differ we agree, 
Our work alike from persecution free, 
And Heaven, approving you, consents to me. 
Take, therefore, from this not all useless hand 
The crown of honor — not in all the land 
One honest man dissenting from the choice. 
Nor in approval one Fred. Crocker's voice! 



BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 175 



TO AN INSOLENT ATTORNEY 

SO, Hall McAllister, 3^011' 11 not be warned — 
My protest slighted, admonition scorned ! 
To save j^our scoundrel client from a cell 
As loth to swallow him as he to swell 
Its sum of meals insurgent (it decries 
All wars intestinal with meats that rise) 
You turn 3^our scurril tongue against the press 
And damn the agency you orght to bless. 
Had not the press with all its hundred ej^es 
Discerned the wolf beneath the sheep's disguise 
And raised the cry upon him, he to-day 
Would lack your company, and 3'ou would lack his 
pay. 

Talk not of ''hire ' ' and consciences for sale — 

You whose profession 'tis to threaten, rail, 

Calumniate and libel at the will 

Of an}^ villain who can pay the bill — 

You whose most honest dollars all were got 

By saying for a fee "the thing that's not ! " 

To 3^ou 'tis one, to challenge or defend ; 

Clients are means, their money is an end. 

In my profession sometimes, as in 3^ours 

Always, a payment large enough secures 

A mercenarj^ service to defend 

The guilty or the innocent to rend. 

But mark the difference, nor think it slight : 



176 BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 

We do not hold it proper, just and right ; 

Of selfibh lies a little still we shame 

And give our villainies another name. 

H^^pocrisy's an ugly vice, no doubt, 

But blushing sinners can't get on without. 

Happy the lawyer ! — at his favored hands 

Nor truth nor decency the world demands. 

Secure in his immunity from shame. 

His cheek ne'er kindles with the tell-tale flame. 

His brains for sale, morality for hire. 

In every land and century a licensed liar ! 

No doubt, McAllister, j^ou can explain 

How honorable 'tis to lie for gain. 

Provided only that the jury's made 

To understand that lying is your trade. 

A hundred thousand volumes, broad and flat, 

(The Bible not included) proving that. 

Have been put forth, though still the doubt remains 

If God has read them with befitting pains. 

No Morrow could get justice, you'll declare. 

If none who knew him foul affirmed him fair. 

Ingenious man ! how easy 'tis to raise 

An argument to justify the course that pays ! 

I grant you, if you like, that men may need 
The services performed for crime by greed, — 
Grant that the perfect welfare of the State 
Requires the aid of those who in debate 
As mercenaries lost in early youth 
The fine distinction between lie and truth — 
Who cheat in argument and set a snare 



BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 177 

To take the feet of Justice unaware — 

Who serve with livelier zeal when rogues assist 

With perjury, embracery (the list 

Is long to quote) than when an honest soul, 

Scorning to plot, conspire, intrigue, cajole, 

Reminds them (their astonishment how great !) 

He'd rather suffer wrong than perpetrate. 

I grant, in short, 'tis better all around 

That ambidextrous consciences abound 

In courts of law to do the dirty work 

That self-respecting scavengers would shirk. 

What then ? Who serves however clean a plau 

By doing dirty work, he is a dirty man ! 



ACCEPTED 

CHARLES SHORTRIDGE once to St. Peter 
came. 
Down ! " cried the saint with his face aflame ; 
'Tis writ that every hardy liar 
Shall dwell forever and ever in fire ! '* 
That's what I said the night that I died, " 
The sinner, turning awaj', replied. 
What! yoit said that?" cried the saint — "what! 

what ! 
You said 'twas so writ? Then, faith, 'tis not! 
I'm a devil at quoting, but I begin 
To fail in my memory. Pray walk in. " 



178 . BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 



A PROMISED FAST TRAIN 

I TURNED my eyes upon the Future's scroll 
And saw its pictured prophecies unroll. 

I saw that magical life-laden train 

Flash its long glories o'er Nebraska's plain. 

I saw it smoothl}^ up the mountain glide. 
" O happy, happy passengers ! " I cried. 

For Pleasure, singing, drowned the engine's roar. 
And Hope on joyous pinions flew before. 

Then dived the train adown the sunset slope — 
Pleasure w^as silent and unseen was Hope. 

Crashes and shrieks attested the deca3^ 
That greed had wrought upon that iron way. 

The rusted rails broke down the rotting ties, 
And clouds of flying spikes obscured the skies. 

My coward ej^es I drew away, distressed, 
And fixed them on the terminus to- West, 

Where soon, its melancholy tale to tell, 
One bloody car- wheel wabbled in and fell ! 



BLACK BEETLES Ix^f AMBER 



79 



B 



ONB 01? THE SAINTS 



IG SMITH is an Oakland School Board man, 
And he looks as good as ever he can ; 



And he's such a cold and a chaste Big Smith 

That snowflakes all are his kin and kith. 

Wherever his eye he chances to throw 

The crystals of ice begin to grow ; 

And the fruits and flowers he sees are lost 

By the singeing touch of a sudden frost. 

The women all shiver whenever he's near, 

And look upon us with a look austere — 

Effect of the Smithian atmosphere. 

Such, in a word, is the moral plan 

Of the Big, Big Smith, the School Board man. 

When told that Madame Ferrier had taught 

Hef7iani in school, his fist he brought 

Like a trip-hammer down on his bulbous knee, 

And he roared : " Her Nanny? By gum, we'll see 

If the public's time she dares devote 

To the educatin' of any dam goat ! ' ' 

" You do not entirely comprehend — 
HemanVs a play," said his learned friend, 

' By Victor Hugo — immoral and bad. 
What's worse, it's French ! ' ' ''Well, v. ell, my lad 
Said Smith, "if he cuts a swath so wide 
I'll have him took re'glar up and tried." 
And he smiled so sweetly the other chap 



>> 



i8o BLACK BEETLES LN AMBER 

Thought that himself was a Finn or Lapp 
Caught in a storm of his native snows, 
With a purple ear and an azure nose. 
The Smith continued : "I never pursue 
Immoral readin'." And that is true : 
He's a saint of remarkably high degree, 
With a mind as chaste as a mind can be ; 
But read ! — the devil a word can he ! 



A MILITARY INCIDENT 

DAWN heralded the coming sun- 
Fort Douglas was computing 
The minutes — and the sunrise gun 
Was manned for his saluting„ 

The gunner at that firearm stood, 
The which he slowly loaded, 

When, bang ! — I know not how it could. 
But sure the charge exploded ! 

Yes, to that veteran's surprise 

The gun went off sublimely, 
And both his busy arms likewise 
Went off with it, untimely. 

Then said that gunner to his mate 
(He was from Ballyshannon) : 

Bedad, the sun's a minute late, 
Accardin' to this cannon ! ' ' 



BLACK BEETLES IX AMBER i8i 



SUBSTANCE VERSUS SHADOW 

SO, gentle critics, you would have me tilt, 
Not at the guilty, only just at Guilt ! — 
Spare the offender and condemn Offense, 
And make life miserable to Pretense ! 
Whip Vice and Folly — that is satire's use — 
But be not personal, for that's abuse ; 
Nor e'er forget what, ' like a razor keen. 
Wounds with a touch that's neither felt nor seen.' ' 
Well, friends, I venture, destitute of awe. 
To think that razor but an old, old saw, 
A trifle rusty ; and a wound, I'm sure. 
That's felt not, seen not, one can well endure. 
Go to ! go to ! — j'-ou're as unfitted quite 
To give advice to wTiters as to write. 
I find in Folly and in Vice a lack 
Of head to hit, and for the lash no back ; 
Whilst Pixley has a pow that's eas}' struck. 
And though good Deacon Fitch (a Fitch for luck !) 
Has none, 3^et, lest he go entirely free, 
God gave to him a corn, a heel to me. 
He, also, sets his face (so like a flint 
The wonder grows that Pickering doesn't skin't) 
With cold austerity, against these wars 
On scamps — 'tis Scampery that he abhors ! 
Behold advance in dignity and state — 
Grave, smug, serene, indubitably great — 



i82 BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 

Stanford, philanthropist ! One hand bestows 
In alms what t'other one as justice owes. 
Rascality attends him like a shade, 
But closes, woundless, o'er my baffled blade, 
Its limbs unsevered, spirit undismayed. 
Faith ! I'm for something can be made to feel, 
If, like Pelides, only in the heel. 
The fellow 's self invites assault ; his crimes 
Will each bear killing twenty thousand times ! 
Anon Creed Raymond — but the list is long 
Of names to point the moral of my song. 
Rogues, fools, impostors, .sycophants, they rise, 
They foul the earth and horrify the skies — 
With Mr. Huntington (sole honest man 
In all the reek of that rapscallion clan) 
Denouncing Theft as hard as e'er he can ! 



THE COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC MORALS 

The Senate met in Sacramento city ; 

On public morals it had no committee 

Though greatly these abounded. Soon the quiet 

Was broken by the Senators in riot. 

Now, at the end of their contagious quarrels. 

There's a committee but no public morals. 



BLACK L1:ETLES IN AMBER 183 



CALIFORNIA 

[The Cliinaman's Assailant was allowed to walk quietly 
away, although the street was filled with pedestrians.— W^ze/5- 
papcr.'\ 

TTTTHY should he not have been allowed 
^^ To thread with peaceful feet the crowd 

Which filled that Christian street ? 
The Decalogue he had observed, 
From Faith in Jesus had not swerved, 
And scorning pious platitudes, 
He saw in the Beatitudes 

A lamp to guide his feet. 

He knew that Jonah downed the whale 
And made no bones of it. The talc 

That Ananias told 
He swore was true. He had no doubt 
That Daniel laid the lions out. 
In short, he had all holiness, 
All meekness and all lowliness, 

And was with saints enrolled. 

'Tis true, some slight excess of zeal 
Sincerely to promote the weal 
Of this most Christian state 
Had moved him rudel}^ to divide 



iS4 BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 

The queue that was a pagan's pride, 
And in addition certif}^ 
The Faith by making fur to fly 
From pelt as well as pate ? 

But, Heavenly Father, thou dost know 
That in this town these actions go 

For nothing worth a name. 
Nay, every editorial ass, 
To prove they never come to pass 
Will damn his soul eternall}^, 
Although in his own journal he 

May read the printed shame. 

From bloody hands the reins of pow^'r 
Fall slack ; the high-decisive hour 

Strikes not for liars' ears. 
Remove, O Father, the disgrace 
That stains our California's face, 
And consecrate to human good 
The strength of her 3^oung womanhood 

And all her golden 3^ears ! 



DE YOUNG— A PROPHECY 

Running for Senator with clumsy pace, 
He stooped so low, to win at least a place. 
That Fortune, tempted b}^ a mark so droll, 
Sprang in an kicked him to the winning pole. 



BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 185 



TO EITHER 

BACK further than 
I know, in San 
Francisco dwelt a wealthy man. 
So rich was he 
That none could be 
Wise, good and great in like degree. 

'Tis true he wrought, 

In deed or thought, 
But few of all the things he ought ; 

But men said : ** Who 

Would wish him to ? 
Great souls are born to be, not do 1 '* 

One thing, indeed, 

He did, we read, 
Which was becoming, all agreed : 

Grown provident, 

Ere life was spent 
He built a mighty monument. 

For longer than 

I know, in San 
Francisco lived a beggar man ; 

And when in bed 

They found him dead — 
Just like the scamp ! ' ' the people said. 



i86 BLACK BEETLES LX AMBER 

He died, they sa}^ 
On the same day 
His wealthy neighbor passed away. 
What matters it 
When beggars quit 
Their beats? I answer: Not a bit. 

The3^ got a spade 
And pick and made 
A hole, and there the chap was laid. 
" He asked for bread," 
'Twas neatl}^ said : 
" He'll get not even a stone instead." 

The years rolled round ; 

His humble mound 
Sank to the level of the ground ; 

And men forgot 

That the bare spot 
Was like (and was) the beggar's lot. 

Forgotten, too. 

Was t'other, who 
Had reared the monument to woo 

Inconstant Fame, 

Though still his name 
Shouted in granite just the same. 

That name, I swear, 
They both did bear 

The beggar and the millionaire. 
That lofty tomb, 
Then, honored — whom? 

For argument here's ample room. 



BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 187- 

I'll not debate, 

But only state 
The scamp first claimed it at the Gate. 

St. Peter, proud 

To serve him, bowed 
And showed him to the softest cloud. 



DISAPPOINTMENT 

THE Senate woke ; the Chairman's snore. 
Was stilled, its echoes balking ; 
The startled members dreamed no more, 
For Steele, who long had held the floor. 



Had suddenly ceased talkin 



As, like Elijah, in his pride, 

He to his seat was passing. 

Go up thou baldhead 1 " Reddy cried. 

Then six fierce bears ensued and tried 
To sunder him for " sassing," 

Two seized his legs, and one his head, 

The fourth his trunk, to munch on 
The fifth preferred an arm instead ; 
The last, with rueful visage, said : 

" Pray what have /for luncheon?" 

Then to that disappointed bear 

Said Steele, serene and chipper. 
My friend, you shall not lack your share : 
Look in the Treasury, and there 

You'll find his other flipper." 



i88 BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 



THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF THEFT 

TN fair Yosemite, that den of thieves 
-^ Wherein the minions of the moon divide 
The travelers' purses, lo ! the Devil grieves, 
His larger share as leader still denied. 

El Capitan, foreseeing that his reign 
May be disputed too, beclouds his head. 

The joyous Bridal Veil is torn in twain 

And the crepe steamer dangles the;re instead. 

The Vernal Fall abates her pleasant speed 
And hesitates to take the final plunge, 

For rumors reach her that another greed 
Awaits her in the Valley of the Sponge. 

The Brothers envy the accord of mind 

And peace of purpose (by the good deplored 

As honor among Commissioners) which bind 
That confraternity of crime, the Board. 

The Half- Dome bows its riven face to weep, 
But not, as formerly, because bereft : 

Prophetic dreams afflict him when asleep 
Of losing his remaining half by theft. 

Ambitious knaves ! has not the upper sod 
Enough of room for every crime that crawls 

But you must loot the Palaces of God 

And daub your filthy names upon the walls ? 



BLACK JJEETLES IN AMBER 189. 



DOWN AMONG THE DEAD MEN 

WITHIN my dark and narrow bed 
I rested well, new-laid : 
I heard above my fleshless head 
The grinding of a spade. 

A gruffer note ensued and grew 
To harsh and harsher strains : 

The poet Welcker then I knew 
Was "snatching" my remains. 

" O Welcker, let your hand be stayed 
And leave me here in peace. 
Of 3' our revenge you should have made 
An end with my decease." 

** Hush, Mouldyshanks, and hear my moan 
I once, as you're aware, 
Was eminent in letters — known 
And honored everywhere. 

*' My splendor made all Berkele}- bright 
And Sacramento blind. 
Men swore no writer e'er could write 
Like me — if I'd a mind. 

" With honors all insatiate, 
With curst ambition smit, 
Too far, alas ! I tempted fate — 
I published what I'd writ ! 



.190 BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 

' ' Good Heaven ! with what a hunger wild 
Oblivion swallows fame ! 
Men who have known me from a child 
Forget my very name ! 

' ' Even creditors with searching looks 
My face cannot recall ; 
My heaviest one — he prints m)^ books — 
Oblivious most of all. 

" O I should feel a sweet content 
If one poor dun his claim 
Would bring to me for settlement, 
And bully me b}^ name. 

' ' My dog is at my gate forlorn ; 
It howls through all the night. 
And when I greet it in the morn 
It answers with a bite ! " 

*' O Poet, what in Satan's name 
To me's all this ado ? 
Will snatching me restore the fame 
That printing snatched from you?" 

" Peace, dread Remains ; I'm not about 
To do a deed of sin. 
I come not here to hale you out — 
I'm trying to get in." 



BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 



[91 



THE IvAST MAN 

I DREAMED that Gabriel took bis horn 
On Resurrection's fateful morn, 
And lighting upon Laurel Hill 
Blew long, blew loud, blew high and shrill. 
The houses compassing the ground 
Rattled their windows at the sound. 
But no one rose. ' ' Alas ! ' ' said he, 
What lazy bones these mortals be ! " 
Again he plied the horn, again 
Deflating both his lungs in vain ; 
Then stood astonished and chagrined 
At raising nothing but the wind. 
At last he caught the tranquil e3'e 
Of an observ^er standing by — 
I^ast of mankind, not doomed to die. 
To him thus Gabriel : " Sir, I pray 
This myster}^ you'll clear aw^a}'. 
Why do I sound my note in vain ? 
Why spring they not from out tlie plain ? 
Where's Luning, Ely the and Michael Reese, 
Magee, who ran the Golden Fleece? 
Where's Asa Fisk? Jim Phelan. who 
Was thought to know a thing or two 
Of land which rose but never sank ? 
Where's Con O'Conor of the Bank. 
And all who consecrated lands 
Of old by laying on of hands ? 



192 BLACK BEETLES LN AMBEL< 

I ask of them because their worth 

Was known in all they wished— the earth. 

Brisk boomers once, alert and wise, 

Why don't they rise, why don't they rise?" 

The man replied : " Reburied long 

With others of the shrouded throng 

In San Mateo — carted there 

And dumped promiscuous, anj^where, 

In holes and trenches — all misfits — 

Mixed up with one another's bits : 

One's back-bone with another's shin, 

A third one's skull with a fourth one's grin — 

Your eye was never, never fixed 

Upon a company so mixed ! 

Go now among them there and blow : 

'Twill be as good as any show 

To see them, Vv^hen they hear the tones, 

Compiling one another's bones ! 

But here ~tis vain to sound and wait : 

Naught rises here but real estate. 

I own it all and shan't disgorge. 

Don't know me? I am Henry George." 



ARBOR DAY 

Hasten, children, black and white — 
Celebrate the yearly rite. 
Every pupil plant a tree : 
It will grow some day to be 
Big and strong enough to bear 
A School Director hanging there. 



BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 193 



THE PIUTK 

UNBEAUTIFUL is the Piute! 
Howe'er bedecked with bravery, 
His person is unsavory — 
Of soap he's destitute. 

He multiplies upon the earth 
In spite of all admonishing ; 
All censure his astonishing 

And versatile unworth. 

Upon the Reservation wide 
We give for his inhabiting 
He goes a-jackass rabbiting 

To furnish his inside. 

The hopper singing in the grass 

He seizes with avidit}^ : 

He loves its tart acidity, 
And gobbles all that pass. 

He penetrates the spider's veil, 
Industriously pillages 
The toads' defenseless villages, 

And shadows home the snail. 

He lightly runs to earth the quaint 
Red worm and, deftly troweling, 
He makes it with his boweling 

Familiarly acquaint. 



J 94 BLACK BEETLES LN AMBER 

He tracks the pine-nut to its lair, 
Surrounds it with celerity, 
Regards it with asperit}^ — 

Smiles, and it isn't there ! 

I wish he'd open up a grin 
Of adequate vivacity 
And carrying capacity 

To take his Agent in. 



FAMB 

HE held a book in his knotty paws, 
And its title grand read he : 
'* The Chronicles of the Kings " it was, 

By the History Companee. 
I'm a monarch," he said 
(But a tear he shed) 
** And my picter here you see. 

Great and lasting is my renown. 
However the wits may flout — 

As wide almost as this blessed town ' ' 
(But he winced as if with gout). 

I paid 'em like sin 

For to put me in. 

But it's O, and O, to be out ! " 



BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 195 



ONE OF THE REDEEMED 

SAINT PETER, standing at the Gate, beheld 
A soul whose body Death had lately felled. 

A pleasant soul as ever was, he seemed : 
His step was joyous and his visage beamed. 

** Good morning, Peter.*' There was just a touch 
Of foreign accent, but not overmuch. 

The Saint bent gravely, like a stately tree. 

And said: "You have the advantage, sir, of me.'* 

'* Renan of Paris," said the immortal part — 
'* A master of the literary art. 

" I'm somewhat famous, too, I grieve to tell, 
As controversialist and infidel." 

" That's of no consequence," the Saint replied, 
*' Why, I myself my Master once denied. 

'* No one up here cares an5^thing for that. 
But is there nothing you were always at ? 

** It seems to me you were accused one day 
Oi something — what it was I can't just say." 

* ' Quite likely, ' ' said the other ; ' * but I swear 
My life was irreproachable and fair." 



196 BLACK BEETLES LN AMBER 

Just then a soul appeared upon the wall, 
Singing a hymn as loud as he could bawl. 

About his head a golden halo gleamed, 
As well befitted one of the redeemed. 

A harp he bore and vigorously- thumbed, 
Strumming he sang, and, singing, ever strummed. 

His countenance, suffused with holy pride, 
Glowed like a pumpkin with a light inside. 

" Ah ! that's the chap," said Peter, " who declares : 
' Renan's a rake and drunkard — smokes and swears.' 

" Yes, that's the fellow — he's a preacher — came 
From San Francisco. Mansfield was his name. ' ' 

" Do you believe him? " said Renan. "Great Scott I 
Believe? Believe the blackguard ? Of course ?/^// 

" Jnst walk right in and make yourself at home. 
And if he pecks at you I'll cut his comb. 

" He's only here because the Devil swore 

He wouldn't have him, for the smile he wore.'' 

Resting his eyes one moment on that proof 
Of saving grace, the Frenchman turned aloof, 

And stepping down from cloud to cloud, said he : 
" Thank you, monsieur, — I'll see if he'll have me.^^ 



BLA CK BEE TL ES IN AMBER 1 97 



A CRITIC 

[Apparently the Cleveland Leader is not a good judge of 
poetry, — The Morn i tig G?//.] 

THAT irovnyoic, neighbor ! to whose vacant lot 
Each rhyming literary knacker scourges 
His cart-compelling Pegasus to trot, 
As folly, fame or famine smartly urges ? 

Admonished by the stimulating goad, 

How gaily, lo ! the spavined crow-bait prances — 
Its cart before it — eager to unload 

The dead-dog sentiments and swill-tub fancies. 

Gravely the sweating scavenger pulls out 
The tail-board of his curst imagination, 

Shoots all his rascal rubbish, and, no doubt, 
Thanks Fortune for so good a dumping-station. 

To improve 3^our property, the vile cascade 
Your thrift invites — to make a higher level. 

In vain : with tons of garbage overlaid. 

Your baseless bog sinks slowly to the devil. 

" Rubbish may be shot here " — familiar sign ! 
I seem to see it in 3^our every column. 
You have your wishes, but if I had mine 

'Twould to your editor mean something solemn. 



198 BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 



A QUESTION OF KlvIGIBILlTY 

IT was a bruised and battered chap 
The victim of some dire mishap, 
Who sat upon a rock and spent 
His breath in this ungay lament : 

" Some wars — I've frequent heard of such- 
Has beat the everlastin' Dutch ! 
But never fight was fit by man 
To equal this which has began 
In our (I'm in it, if you please) 
Academy of Sciences. 
For there is various gents belong 
To it which go persistent wrong, 
And loving the debates' delight 
Calls one another names at sight. 
Their disposition, too, accords 
With fighting like they all was lords ! 
Sech impulses should be withstood : 
'Tis scientific to be good. 

** 'Twas one of them, one night last week, 
Rose up his figure for to speak : 

* Please, Mr. Chair, I'm holding here 
A resolution which, I fear. 
Some ancient fossils that has bust 



BLACK BEETLES LN AMBER 199 

Their cases and shook oif their dust 
To sit as Members here will find 
Unpleasant, not to say unkind.* 
And then he read it every word, 
And silence fell on all which heard. 
That resolution, wild and strange, 
Proposed a fundamental change. 
Which was that idiots no more 
Could join us as they had before ! 

"No sooner was he seated than 
The members rose up, to a man. 
Each chap was primed with a reply 
And tried to snatch the Chairman 's eye. 
They stomped and shook their fists in air, 
And, O, what words was uttered there ! 

''The Chair was silent, but at last 
He hove up his proportions vast 
And stilled them tumults with a look 
By which the undauntedest was shook. 
He smiled sarcastical and said : 

* If Argus was the Chair, instead 
Of me, he'd lack enough of eyes 
Bach orator to recognize ! 
And since, denied a hearing, 3'ou 
Might maybe undertake to do 
Bach other harm before 3^ou cease, 
I've took some steps to keep the peace : 
I've ordered out — alas, alas. 
That Science e'er to such a pass 
Should come ! — I've ordered out — the gas ! ' 



BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 

" O if a tongue or pen of fire 
Was mine I could not tell entire 
What the ensuin' actions was. 
When swollered up in darkness' jaws 
We fit and fit and fit and fit, 
And everything we felt we hit I 
We gouged, we scratched and we pulled hair, 
And O, what w^ords was uttered there ! 
And when at last the da}^ dawn came 
Three hundred Scientists was lame ; 
Two hundred others couldn't stand, 
They'd been so careless handled, and 
One thousand at the very least 
Was spread upon the floor deceased ! 
'Twere eas}^ to exaggerate. 
But lies is things I mortal hate. 

'*Such, friends, is the disaster sad 
Which has befel the Cal. Acad. 
And now the question is of more 
Importance than it was before ; 
Shall vacancies among us be 
To idiots threw open free ? ' ' 



FLEET STROTHER 

What ! 3^011 were born, j-ou animated doll, 
Within the shadow of the Capitol ? 
'Twas always thought (and Bancroft so assures 
His trusting readers) it was reared in yours. 



BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 201 



CAUFORNIAN SUMMER PICTURES 

THK FOOT-HILI. RKSORT 

A SSEMBLED in the parlor 
-^"^ Of the place of last resort, 
The smiler and the snarler 

And the guests of every sort — 
The elocution chap 
With rhetoric on tap ; 
The mimic and the funu}- dog ; 
The social sponge ; the money-hog ; 
Vulgarian and dude ; 
And the prude ; 
The adiposing dame 
With pimply face aflame ; 
The kitten-playful virgin — 
Vergin' on to fifty years ; 
The solemn-looking sturgeon 

Of a firm of auctioneers ; 
The widower flirtatious ; 
The widow all too gracious ; 
The man with a proboscis and a sepulcher beneath. 
One assassin picks the banjo, and another picks his 
teeth. 

AT ANCHOR 

The soft asphaltum in the sun ; 
Betrays a tendency to run ; 



2 BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 

Whereas the dog that takes his way 
Across its course concludes to stay. 

THE IN-COMING CLIMAT:^ 

Now o' nights the ocean breeze 

Makes the patient flinch, 
For that zephyr bears a sneeze 

In ever}^ cubic inch. 
IvO ! the lively population 
Chorusing in sternutation 
A catarrhal acclamation ! 

A IvONG-FEI.T WANT 

Dimly apparent, through the gloom 
Of Market-street's opaque simoom, 
A queue of people, parti-sexed, 
Awaiting the command of " Next ! *' 
A sidewalk booth, a dingy sign : 
" Teeth dusted nice — five cents a shine/* 

TO THE HAPPY HUNTING GROUNDS 

Wide windy reaches of high stubble field ; 

A long gray road, bordered with dusty pines ; 

A wagon moving in a " cloud by day." 

Two city sportsmen with a dove between. 

Breast-high upon a fence and fast asleep— 

A solitary dove, the only dove 

In twenty counties, and it sick, or else 

It were not there. Two guns that fire as one, 

With thunder simultaneous and loud ; 

Two shattered human wrecks of blood and bone ! 

And later, in the gloaming, comes a man — 

The worthy local coroner is he, 



BLACK BEETLES LN AMBER 203 

Renowned all thereabout, and popular 

With many a remain. All tenderly 

Compiling- in a game-bag the debris, 

He glides into the gloom and fades from sight. 

The dove, cured of its ailment by the shock, 

Has flown, meantime, on pinions strong and fleet, 

To die of age in some far foreign land. 



SLANDER 

FITCH : 

'* All vices 3^ou've exhausted, friend; 
So all the papers say." 

PICKERING : 
*' Ah, what vile calumnies are penned ! — 
'Tis just the other way." 



JAMES Iv. FLOOD 

AS oft it happens in the youth of day 
- That mists obscure the sun's imperfect ray, 
Who, as he's mounting to the dome's extreme. 
Smites and dispels them with a steeper beam. 
So you the vapors that begirt your birth 
Consumed, and manifested all your worth. 
But still one early vice obstructs the light 
And sullies all the visible and bright 
Display of mind and character. You write. 



204 BLACK BEETLES LV AMBER 



FOUR CANDIDATES FOR SENATOR 

TO flatter 3^our way to the goad of 3'our hope, 
O plausible Mr. Perkins, 
You'll need ten tons of the softest soap 

And butter a thousand firkins. 
The soap you could put to a better use 

In ■washing your hands of ambition 
Ere the butter's used for cooking your goose 
To a beautiful brown condition. 



The Railroad can't run Stanford." That is so — 
The tail can't curl the pig ; but then, you know, 

Inside the vegetable-garden's pale 

The pig will eat more cabbage than the tail. 



When Sargent struts by all the lawmakers say : 
** Right— left ! " It is fair to infer 
The right w^ll get left, nor polar the day 
When he makes that thing to occur. 

Not so, not so, 'tis a joke, that cry — 

Foolish and dull and small : 
He so bores them for votes that they mean to imply 

He's a drill-Sargent, that is all. 



Gods ! w^hat a sight ! Astride McClure's broad back 
Estee jogs round the Senatorial track, 
The crowd all undecided, as they pass, 



BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 205 

Whether to cheer the man or cheer the ass. 
They stop : the man to lower his feet is seen 
And the tired beast, withdrawing from between, 
Mounts, as they start again, the biped's neck, 
And scarce the crowd can say which one's on deck. 



A GROWLER 

JUDGE SHAFTER, you're an aged man, I know, 
And learned too, I doubt not, in the lav/ ; 
And a head white with many a winter's snow 

(I wish, however that your heart would thaw) 

Claims reverence and honor ; but the j aw 
That's always wagging with a word malign, 

Nagging and scolding every one in sight 
As harshly as a jaybird in a pine. 

And with as little sense of wrong and right 
As animates that irritable creature. 
Is not a very venerable feature. 

You damn all witnesses, all jurors too 
(And swear at the attorneys, I suppose, 

But that's commendable) " till all is blue" ; 
And what it's all about, the good Lord knows, 
Not you ; but all the hotter, fiercer glows 

Your wrath for that — as dogs the louder howl 
With only moonshine to incite their rage, 

And bears with more ferocious menace growl, 
Even when their food is flung into the cage. 

Reform, your Honor, and forbear to curse us. 

Lest all men, hearing you, cry : '' Ecce ilfsus! " 



2o6 BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 



AD MOODIUM 

TUT I Moody, do not try to show 
To gentlemen and ladies 
That if they have not " Faith/' they'll go 
Headlong to Hades. 

Faith is belief ; and how can I 
Have that by being willing? 
This dime I cannot, though I try, 
Believe a shilling. 

Perhaps you can. If so, praj^ do — 

Believe you own it, also. 
But what seems evidence to j^ou 
I ma}^ not call so. 

Heaven knows I'd like the Faith to think 

This little vessel's contents 

Are liquid gold. 1 see 'tis ink 

For writing nonsense. 

Minds prone to Faith, however, may 

Come now and then to sorrow : 
They put their trust in truth to-day, 
In lies to-morrow. 

No doubt the happiness is great 

To think as one would wish to ; 
But not to sv.-allow every bait, 
As certain fish do. 



BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 207 

To think a snake a cord, I hope, 
Would bolden and delight me ; 
But some day I might think a rope 
Would chase and bite me. 

Curst Reason ! Faith forever blest ! " 

You're crying all the season. 
Well, who decides that Faith is best ? 
Why, Mr. Reason. 

He's right or wrong ; he answers you 

According to your folly. 
And says what you have taught him to, 
Like any polly. 



AN EPITAPH 

TTANGMAN'S hands laid in this tomb an 

-*--^ Imp of Satan's getting, whom an 

Ancient legend says that woman 
Never bore — he owed his birth 
To Sin herself. From Hell to Earth 
She brought the brat in secret state 
And laid him at the Golden gate, 

And they named him Henry Vrooman. 
While with mortals here he stayed. 
His father frequently he played. 

Raised his birth-place and in other 

Playful ways begot his mother. 



2o8 BLA CK BEE TLES IN A MBER 



A SPADE 

[The spade that was used to turn the first sod in the con- 
struction of the Central Pacific Railroad is to be exhibited at 
the New Orleans Exposition. — Press Telegram. 1 

T)RECURSOR of our woes, historic spade, 



r 



What dismal records burn upon thy blade 



On thee I see the maculating stains 
Of passengers' commingled blood and brains. 
In this red rust a widow's curse appears, 
And here an orphan tarnished thee with tears. 
Upon thy handle sanguinary bands 
Reveal the clutching of thine owner's hands 
When first he wielded thee with vigor brave 
To cut a sod and dig a people's grave — 
(For they who are debauched are dead and ought, 
In God's name, to be hid from sight and thought.) 
Within thee, as within a magic glass, 
I seem to see a foul procession pass — 
Judges with ermine dragging in the mud 
And spotted here and there with gtiiltless blood ; 
Gold-greedy legislators jingling bribes ; 
Kept editors and sycophantic scribes ; 
Liars in swarms and plunderers in tribes \ 
They fade away before the night's advance, 
And fancy figures thee a devil's lance 
Gleaming portentous through the misty shade, 
While ghosts of murdered virtues shriek about my 
blade I 



BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 209 



THE VAN NESSIAD 

FROM end to end, thine avenue, Van Ness, 
Rang with the cries of battle and distress ! 
Brave lungs were thundering with dreadful sound 
And perspiration smoked along the ground ! 
Sing, heavenly muse, to ears of mortal clay, 
The meaning, cause and finish of the fray. 

Great Porter Ashe (invoking first the gods. 
Who signed their favor with assenting nods 
That snapped off half their heads — their necks grown 

dry 
Since last the nectar cup w^ent circling by) 
Resolved to build a stable on his lot, 
His neighbors fiercely swearing he should not. 
Said he : "I build that stable ! " ' ' No, you don' t, ' ' 
Said they. "I can!" *'You can't!" '^Iwill!" 

''You won't!" 
" By heaven ! " he swore ; *' not only will I build, 
But purchase donkeys till the place is filled ! " 
" Needless expense," they sneered in tones of ice — 
"The owner's self, if lodged there, would suffice. " 
For three long months the awful war they waged : 
With women, women, men wdth men engaged, 
While roaring babes and shrilling poodles raged 1 

Jove, from Olympus, where he still maintains 
His ancient session (with rheumatic pains 



?io BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 

Touched by his long exposure) marked the strife, 

Interminable but b}^ loss of life ; 

For malediction soon exhausts the breath — 

If not, old age itself is certain death. 

Lo ! he holds high in heaven the fatal beam ; 

A golden pan depends from each extreme ; 

This feels of Porter's fate the downward stress, 

That bears the destiny of all Van Ness. 

Alas ! the rusted scales, their life all gone. 

Deliver judgment neither pro nor con : 

The dooms hang level and the war goes on. 

With a divine, contemptuous disesteem 

Jove dropped the pans and kicked, himself, the beam : 

Then, to decide the strife, with ready wit. 

The nickel that he did not care for it 

Twirled absently, remarking : " See it spin : 

Head, Porter loses ; tail, the others win." 

The conscious nickel, charged w4th doom, spun round, 

Portentously and made a ringing sound, 

Then, staggering beneath its load of fate. 

Sank rattling, died at last and lay in state. 

Jove scanned the disk and then, as is his wont, 
Raised his considering orbs, exclaiming : ' ' Front ! ' ' 
With leisurely alacrity approached 
The herald god, to whom his mind he broached : 
" In San Francisco two belligerent Powers, 
Such as contended round great Ilion's towers, 
Fight for a stable, though in either class 
There's not a horse, and but a single ass. 
Achilles Ashe, with formidable jaw 
Assails a Trojan band with fierce hee-haw, 



BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 211 

Firing the night with brilliant curses. The}- 

With dark vituperation gloom the da3^ 

Fate, against which nor gods nor men compete, 

Decrees their victory and his defeat. 

With haste, good Mercury, betake thee hence 

And salivate him till he has no sense ! " 

Sheer downward shot the messenger afar, 
Trailing a splendor like a falling star ! 
With dimming lustre through the air he burned, 
Vanished, nor till another sun returned. 
The sovereign of the gods superior smiled, 
Beaming benignant, fatherly and mild : 
*' Is Destiny's decree performed, my lad? — 
And has he now no sense?" *'Ah, sire, he never 
had." 



A FISH COMMISSIONER 

Great Joseph D. Redding — illustrious name ! — 
Considered a fish-horn the trumpet of Fame. 
That goddess was angrj?-, and w^hat do you think ? 
Her trumpet she filled wnth a gallon of ink. 
And all through the Press, with a devilish glee, 
She sputtered and spattered the name of J. D. 



BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 



TO A STRAY DOG 

WELL, Towser (I'm thinking 3^our name must be 
Towser), 
You're a decentish puppy as puppy dogs go, 
For you never, I'm sure, could have dined upon trow- 
ser, 
And your tail's unimpeachably curled just? so. 

But, dear me ! your name — if 'tis yours — is a "poser " : 

Its meaning I cannot get anywise at, 
When spoken correctly perhaps it is Toser, 

And means one who toses. Max Muller, how's that ? 

I ne'er w^as ingenious at all at divining 

A word's prehistorical, primitive state. 
Or finding its root, like a mole, by consigning 

Its bloom to the turnep-top's sorrowful fate. 

And, now that I think of it well, I'm no nearer 
The riddle's solution than ever — for how's 

My pretty invented w^ord, " tose," any clearer 
In point of its signification than " towse "? 

So, Towser (or Toser), I mean to rename you 
In honor of some good and eminent man. 

In the light and the heat of whose quickening fame 
you 
May grow to an eminent dog if you can. 



nLACK' BEETLES I. ^ AMBER 213 

In sunshine like his j^ou'U not long be a crouclier : 
The Senate shall hear you — for that I will vouch. 

Come here, sir. Stand up. I rechristen you Goucher. 
But damn you ! I'll shoot you if ever you gouch ! 



m HIS HAND 

DE YOUNG (in Chicago the story is told) 
"Took his life in his hand," like a warrior bold, 
And stood before Buckley — who thought him behind, 
For Buckley, the man-eating monster is blind, 
" Count fairly the ballots ! " so rang the demand 
Of the gallant De Young, with his life in his hand. 
'Tis done, and the struggle is ended. No more 
He havocs the battle-field, gilt with the gore 
Of slain reputations. No more he defies 
His "lying opponents" with deadlier lies. 
His trumpet is hushed and his belt is unbound — 
His enemies' characters cumber the ground. 
They bloat on the war-plain with ink all asoak, 
The fortunate candidates perching to croak. 
No more he will charge, with a daring divine, 
His foes with corruption, his friends by the line. 
The thunders are stilled of the horrid campaign, 
De Young is triumphant, and never again 
Will he need, with his life in his hand, to roar : 

" Count fair or, by G , I will die on yowx floor ! " 

His life has been spared, for his sins to atone, 

And the hand that he took it in washed with cologne. 



214 BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 



A DEMAGOGUE 

i ^ITTAWP, yawp, 3^awp ! 

J^ Under the moon and sun„ 
It's aye the rabble, 
And I to gabble, 
And lie}^ ! for the tale that is never done. 

" Chant, chant, chant ! 
To woo the reluctant vote. 
I would I were dead 
And my say were said 
And ni}^ song were sung to its ultimate note. 

*' Stab, stab, stab! 
Ah ! the weapon between my teeth — 
I'm sick of the flash of it ; 
See how the slash of it 
Misses the foeman to mangle the sheath I 

" Boom, boom, boom! 
I'm beating the mammoth drum. 
My nethermost tripes 
I blow into the pipes — 
It's oh ! for the honors that never come ! " 

'Twas the dolorous blab 
Of a tramping ' ' scab ' ' — 



JILACK BEETLES IN AJfUER 215 

'Twas the eloquent Swift 
Of the marvelous gifl — 
The wild, weird, w^onderful gift of gab ! 



IGNIS FATUUS 

WEEP, weep, each lo3^al partisan, 
For Buckley, king of hearts ; 
A most accomplished man ; a man 
Of parts — of foreign parts. 

Eong 3'ears he ruled with gentle sway, 

Nor grew his glory dim ; 
And he would be w4th us to-day 

If we were but with him. 

Men W'Ondered at his going off 

In such a sudden way ; 
'Twas thought, as he had come to scoff 

He would remain to prey. 

Since he is gone we're all agreed 

That he is what men call 
A crook : his very steps, indec", 

Are bent — to Montreal. 

So let our tears unhindered flow, 
Our sighs and groans have w^ay : 

It matters not how much w^e Oh ! — 
The devil is to pay. 



2i6 BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 



FROM TOP TO BOTTOM 

[Japan has 73,759 Buddhist priests, " most of whom," says 
a Christian missionary, "are grossly ignorant, and many of 
them lead scandalous lives. "] 

O BUDDHA, had you but foreknown 
The vices of your priesthood 
It would have made you twist and moan 

As any wounded beast woukl. 
You w^ould have damned the entire lot 
And turned a Christian, would you not? 

There were no Christians, I '11 aliow% 

In 3^our da}^ ; that w^ould only 
Have brought distinction. Even now 

A Christian might feel lonely. 
All take the name, but facts are things 
As stubborn as the will of kings. 

The priests were ignorant and low 

When ridiculed by Lucian ; 
The records, could we read, might show 

The same of times Confucian. 
And yet the fact I can't disguise 
That Deacon Rankin's good and wise. 

'Tis true he is not quite a priest, 

Nor more than half a preacher ; 
But he exhorts as loud at least 



BLACK BEETLI'lS IX AMBKR 211 

As any living creature. 
And when the plate is passed about 
He never takes a penny out. 

From Buddha down to Rankin ! There, — • 

I never did intend to. 
This pen's a buzzard's quill, I swear, 

Such subjects to descend to. 
When from the humming-bird I've wrung 
A plume I'll write of Mike de Young. 



AN IDLER 

WHO told Creed Haymond he was witty? — who 
Had nothing better in this world to do ? 
Could no greased pig's appeal to his embrace 
Kindle his ardor for the friendl}^ chase ? 
Did no dead dog upon a vacant lot, 
Bloated and bald, or curdled in a clot, ' 
Stir his compassion and inspire his arms 
To hide from human ej^es its faded charms ? 

If not to works of piety inclined. 

Then recreation might have claimed his mind. 

The harmless game that shows the feline greed 

To cinch the shorts and make the market bleed'*^ 

Is better .sport than victimizing Creed ; 

And a far livelier satisfaction comes 

Of knowing Simon, autocrat of thumbs. f 



2x8 BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 

If neither worthy work nor pla}' command 
This gentleman of leisure's heart and hand, 
Then Mammon might his idle spirit lift 
By hope of profit to some deed of thrift. 
Is there no cheese to pare, no flint to skin, 
No tin to mend, no glass to be put in, 
No housewife worthy of a morning visit, 
Her rags and sacks and bottles to solicit? 
Lo ! the blind sow's precarious pursuit 
Of the aspiring oak's familiar fruit ! — 
'Twould more advantage any man to steal 
This easy victim's undefended meal 
Than tell Creed Haymond he has wit, and so 
Expose the state to his narcotic flow ! 



■^ ' ' Pussy Wants a Corner. ' * 
t ^' Simon Says Thumbs Up. ' 



THE DEAD KING 

Hawaii's King resigned his breath — 

Our Legislature guffawed. 
The awful dignity of death 

Not any single rough awed. 
But when our Legislators die 
All Kings, Queens, Jacks and Aces cry. 



BLACK BEETLES IN AM HER 219 



A PATTER SONG 

THERE was a cranky Governor— 
His name it wasn't Waterman. 
For office he was hotter than 
The love of any lover, nor 
Was Boruck's threat of aiding him 
Effective in dissuading him — 

This pig-headed, big-headed, singularly self-con- 
ceited Governor Nonwaterman. 

To citrus fairs, et ccBter'a^ 

He went about philandering, 

To pride of parish pandering. 
He knew not any better — ah. 
His early education had 
Not taught the abnegation fad — 

The wool-witted, buU-v/itted, fabulously feeble- 
minded king of gabble-gandering 1 

He conjured up, ad libitum^ 

With postures energetical. 

One day (this is prophetical) 
His graces, to exhibit 'em. 
He straddled in each attitude. 
Four parallels of latitude — 

The slab-footed, crab-footed, galloping gregarian 
of presence unaesthetical ! 



220 BLACK BEETLES LN AJIBEK 

An ancient cow, perceiving that 

His powers of agilitj^ 

Transcended her abilit}^ 
(A circumstance for grieving at) 
Upon her horns engrafted him 
And to the welkin wafted him — 

The high-rolling, sk3'-rolling, hurtling hallelujah- 
lad of peerless volatility ! 



A CALLER 

4tTTTHY, Goldenson, j'ou're looking very well." 
^ V Said Death as, strolling through the County 
Jail, 
He entered that serene assassin's cell 
And hung his hat and coat upon a nail. 
** I think that life in this secluded spot 

Agrees with men of your trade, does it not?" 

" Well, yes," said Goldenson, *" I can't complain ; 

Life anj^where — provided it is mine — 
Agrees with me ; but I observe with pain 

That still the people murmur and repine. 
It hurts their sense of harmon3^ no doubt, 
To see a persecuted man grow stout. ' ' 

" O no, 'tis not 3^our growing stout, " said Death, 
*' Whith makes these malcontents complain and 

scold — 
They like you to be, somehow, scant of breath. 



BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 221 

What they object to is your growing old. 
And — though indiflferent to lean or fat — 
I don't myself entirely favor thaty 

With brows that met above the orbs beneath, 
And nose that like a soaring hawk appeared, 

And lifted lip, uncovering his teeth, 
The Mamikellikiller coldly sneered : 

O, so you don't I Well, how will you assuage 

Your spongy passion for the blood of age? " 

Death with a clattering convulsion drew 
His coat on, hatted his unmeated pow. 

Unbarred the door and, stepping partly through. 
Turned and made answer : "I w^ill shozo yo^x how. 

I 'm going to the Bench you call Supreme 

And tap the old women who sit there and dream." 



THE SHAFTBR SHAFTED 

WEI^L, James McMillan Shafter, you're a Judge- 
At least you were when last I knew of you ; 
And if the people since have made you budge 
I did not notice it. I've much to do 
Without endeavoring to follow, through 
The miserable squabbles, dust and smudge, 
The fate of even the veteran contenders 
Who fight with flying colors and suspenders. 



222 BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 

Being a Judge, 'tis natural and wrong 

That you should villify the public press — 

Save while you are a candidate. That song 
Is easy quite to sing, and I confess 
It wins applause from hearers who have less 

Of spiritual graces than belong 

To audiences of another kidne}^ — 

Men, for example, like Sir Philip Sidney. 

Newspapers, so you say, don't always treat 
The Judges with respect. That ma}^ be so 

And still no harm done, for I swear I'll eat 
My legs and in the long hereafter go, 
Snake-like, upon my belly if you'll show 

All Judges are respectable and sweet. 

For some of them are rogues and the world's laughter's 

Directed at some others, for they're Shafters. 



THE MUMMERY 



THE TWO CAVEES 

DRAMATIS PERSON^. 

Fitch a Pelter of Railrogiies 

Pickering his Partner, an Enemy to Siii 

Old Nick a General Blackwasher 

Dead Cat a Missile 

Antique Egg Another 

Raii,rogues, Dump-Carters. Navvies and Unassorted Shov- 

EivRY in the Lower Distance 

Scene — The Brink of a Railway Ci:t, a ]^.Ii!e Deep. 
Tiuie — 1875, 

Fitch : 
Gods ! what a steep declivity ! Below 
I see the lazy dump-carts come and go, 
Creeping like beetles and about as big. 
The delving Paddies — 

Pickering : 

Case of infra dig. 
Fitch : 
lyOring, light-minded and unmeaning quips 
Come with but scant propriety from lips 
Fringed with the blue-black evidence of age. 
'Twere well to cultivate a style more sage, 
For men will fancy, hearing how you pun, 
Our foulest missiles are but thrown in fun. 

(Enter Dead Cat.) 
Here's one that thoughtfully has come to hand ; 
Slant your fine eye below and sec it land. 
(Seizes Dead Cat by the tail and szuings it in act to throw.) 

Dead Cat (singing) : 
Merrily, merrily, round I go — 



226 BLACK BEETLES LN AMBER 

Over and under and at. 
Swing wide and free, swing high and low 
The anti-monopoly cat ! 

O, who wouldn't be in the place of me, 
The anti-monopoly cat ? 
Designed to admonish. 
Persuade and astonish 
The capitalist and — 

Fitch (lettmg go) : 
Scat! 

(Exit Dead Cat.) 

Pickering : 
Huzza ! good Deacon, well and truly flung ! 
Pat Stanford it has grassed, and Mike de Young. 
Mike drives a dump-cart for the villains, though 
'Twere fitter that he pull it. Well, we owe 
The traitor one for leaving us ! — some day 
We'll get, if not his place, his cart awa3^ 
Meantime fling missiles — any kind will do. 

( Entc7' Antique Egg.) 
Ha ! we can give them an ovatioji, too ! 
Antiouk Egg : 

In the valley of the Nile, 

Where the Holy Crocodile 

Of immeasurable smile 

Blossoms like the early rose, 

And the Sacred Onion grows — 

When the Pyramids were new 

And the Sphinx possessed a nose, 

By a storkess I was laid 

In the cool papyrus shade, 



BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 227 

Where the rushes later grew, 
That concealed the little Jew, 
Bab}^ Mose. 

Straining very hard to hatch, 
I disrupted there my yolk ; 
And I felt my yellow streaming 

Through my white ; 
And the dream that I was dreaming 
Of posterity was broke 

In a night. 
Then from the papyrus-patch 
B}^ the rising waters rolled, 
Passing many a temple old, 
I proceeded to the sea. 
Memnon sang, one morn, to me. 
And I heard Cambyses sass 
The tomb of Ozymandias ! 
Fitch : 
O, venerablest orb of all the earth, 
God rest the lady fowl that gave thee birth ! 
Fit missile for the vilest hand to throw — 
I freely tender thee mine own. Although 
As a bad ^%^ I am myself no slouch, 
Th}^ riper years thy ranker worth avouch. 
Now, Pickering, please expose 3^our eye and say 
If — whoop ! — 

(Exit egg. ) 
I've got the range. 
Pickering : 

Hooray ! hooray ! 
A grand good shot, and Teddy Colton's down : 



228 BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 

It burst in thunderbolts upon his crown ! 
Ivarry O' Crocker drops his pick and flies, 
And deafening odors scream along the skies ! 
Pelt 'em some more. 

Fitch : 

There's nothing left but tar — 
I wish I were a Yahoo. 

Pickering : 

Well, 3'Ou are. 
But keep the tar. How well I recollect, 
When Mike w^as in with us — proud, strong, erect — 
Mens conscia recti — flinging mud, he stood, 
Austerely brave, incomparably good, 
Ere 3'et for filthy lucre he began 
To drive a cart as Stanford's hired man, 
That pitch-pot bearing in his hand, Old Nick 
Appeared and tarred us all with the same stick. 

{Enter Old Nick .^ 
I hope he won't return and use his arts 
To make us part with our immortal parts. . 

Old Nick : 
Make yourself easy on that score my lamb ; 
For both your souls I wouldn't give a damn ! 
I want my tar-pot — hello ! w^here's the stick? 

Fitch : 
Don't look at me that fashion ! — look at Pick. 

Pickering : 
Forgive me, father — pity my remorse 1 
Truth is — Mike took that stick to spank his horse. 
It fills my pericardium with grief 
That I kept company with such a thief 



JJLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 229 

{Endeavoring to get his handkeirhief, he opens his eoat mtd 
the tar-stick falls out. Nick picks it up, looks at the culp7'it 
reproachfully and withdraws in tears.) 

Fitch (excitedly) : 
O Pickering, come hither to the brink — 
There's something going on down there, I think ! 
With many an upward smile and meaning wink 
The na\'^des all are running from the cut 
Like lunatics, to right and left — 

Pickering : 

Tut, tut— 
'Tis only some poor sport or boisterous joke. 
Let us sit down and have a quiet smoke. 

( They sit and light cigars. ) 
Fitch (singing) : 
When first I met Miss Toughie 

I smoked a fine cigyar, 
An' I was on de dummy 
And she was in de cyar. 
Both (siyiging) : 
An' I was on de dummy 
And she was in de cyar. 
Fitch (singing) : 
I couldn't go to her, 

An' she wouldn't come to me ; 
An' I was as oneasy 
As a gander on a tree. 
Both (singing) : 
An' I was as oneasy 
As a gander on a tree. 
Fitch (singing) : 
But purt3' soon I weakened 



230 BLACK BEETLES LN AMBER 

An' lef de dummy's bench, 
An' frevv away a ten-cent weed 
To win a five-cent wench ! 
Both (singing) : 
An' frew away a ten-cent weed 
To win a five-cent wench ! 
Fitch : 
Is there not now a certain substance sold 
Under the name of fulminate of gold, 
A high explosive, popular for blasting, 
Producing an efi"ect immense and lasting ? 

Pickering : 
Nay, that's mere superstition. Rocks are rent 
And excavations made by argument. 
Explosives all have had their day and season ; 
The modern engineer relies on reason. 
He'll talk a tunnel through a mountain's flank 
And by fair speech cave down the tallest bank. 
( The earth trembles, a deep subtei^ranean explosion is heard 
and a section of the bank as big as El Capitan starts away and 
plunges thnndei'ously into the cut. A part of it strikes De 
Young'' s dumpcart abaft the axletree and flings him, hurtling, 
skywardy a thing of legs and arms, to descend on the distant 
mountains, zuhere it is cold. Fitch and Pickering pull them- 
selves out of the debris and stand ungraveling their eyes and 
noses.) 

Fitch : 

Well, since I'm down here I will help to grade, 
And do dirt-throwing henceforth with a spade. 

Pickering : 
God bless my soul ! it gave me quit a start. 
Well, fate is fate — I guess I'll drive this cart. 
(Curtain,) 



BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 



METEAIPSYCHOSIS 

DRAINIATIS PERSON.^. 

St. John a. Presidential Candidate 

McDonald a Defeated Aspirant 

Mr.3. Havss o an Ex-President 

Pitts-Stevens a Water Nymph 

Scene — A Small Lake in the Alleghany IMountains. 

St. Joini : 
Hours I've immersed my muzzle in this tarn 
And, quaffing copious potations, tried 
To suck it dry ; but ever as I pumped 
Its waters into my distended skin 
The labor of my zeal extruded them 
In perspiration from my pores ; and so, 
Rilling the marginal declivity , 
They fell again into their source. Ah, me ! 
Could I but find within these ancient hills 
Some long extinct volcano, by the rains 
Of countless ages in its crater brimmed 
Like a full goblet, I would lay me down 
Prone on the outer slope, and o'er its edge 
Arching my neck, I'd siphon out its store 
And flood the valleys with my sweat for aye. 
So should I be accounted as a god, 
Even as Father Nilus is. What's that? 
Methought I heard some sawyer draw his file 
With jarring, stridulous cacophany 
Across his notchy blade, to set its teeth 
And mine on edge. Ha ! there it goes again ! 



232 BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 

So7ig, zuithin. 
Cold water's the milk of the mountains, 
And Nature's our wet-nurse. O then, 
Glue thou thy blue lips to her fountains 
Forever and ever, amen ! 
St. John : 
Why surely there's congenial compan}^ 
Aloof— the spirit, I suppose, that guards 
This sacred spot ; perchance some water-n3'mph 
Who laving in the crystal flood her limbs 
Has taken cold, and so, with raucous voice 
Afiiicts the sensitive membrane of mine ear 
The while she sings ni}^ sentiments. 

{Elite}'- Pitts-Stevens.) 
Hello ! 
What fiend is this ? 

Pitts-Stevens : 

'Tis I, be not afraid. 
St. John : 
And who, thou antiquated crone, art thou ? 
1" ne'er forget a face, but names I can't 
So w^ell remember. I have seen thee oft. 
When in the middle season of the night. 
Curved with a cucumber, or knotted hard 
With an eclectic pie, I've striven to keep 
My head and heels asunder, thou has come, 
With sociable familiarity. 
Into my dream, but not, alas, to bless. 

Pitts-Stevens : 
My name's Pitts-Stevens, age just seventeen years ; 
Talking teetotaler, professional 
Beauty. 



BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 233 

St. John: 
What dost thou here ? 
Pitts-Stevkns : 

I'm come, fair sir, 
With paint and brush to blazon on these rocks 
The merits of nn^ master's nostrum — so : 

(Paints rapidly.) 
** McDonald's Vinegar Bitters ! " 

St. John : 

What are they ? 
Pitts -Stevens : 
A woman suffering from widowhood 
Took a full bottle and was cured. A man 
There was — a murderer ; the doctors all 
Had given him up — he'd but an hour to live. 
He swallowed half a glassful. He is dead, 
But not of Vinegar Bitters. A w^ee babe 
Lay sick and cried for it. The mother gave 
That innocent a spoonful and it smoothed 
Its pathway to the tomb. 'Tis warranted 
To cause a bo}^ to strike his father, make 
A pig squeal, start the hair upon a stone, 
Or play the fiddle for a country dance. 

(Enter McDonald, reading a Sunday-school book . ) 
Good morrow, sir ; I trust you're well. 
McDonald : 

H'lo, Pitts! 
Observe, good friends, I have a volume here 
Myself am author of — a noble book 
To train the infant mind (delightful task ! ) 
It tells how one Samantha Brown, age, six. 



234 BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 

A gutter-bunking slave to rum, was saved 
By Vinegar Bitters, went to church and now 
Has an account at the Pacific Bank. 
I'll read the whole work to 3'ou. 
St John : 

Heaven forbid ! 
I've elsewhere an engagement. 

Pitts-Stevens : 

I am deaf. 
MciDoNALD (Tcading 7'cgardless) : 

" Once on a time there lived " 

(Enter ]\rrs. JLayes.) 
Behold our queen ! 
Ali.: 
Her e5"es upon the ground 

Before her feet she low'rs, 
Walking, in thought profound, 

As 'twere, upon all fours. 
Her visage is austere, 

Her gait a high parade ; 
At every step you hear 
The sloshing lemonade ! 

Mrs. Hayes (to herself ) : 
Once, sitting in the White House, hard at work 
Signing State papers (Rutherford was there, 
Knitting some hose) a sudden glory fell 
Upon my paper. I looked up and saw 
An angel, holding in his hand a rod 
Wherewith he struck me. Smarting with the blow 
I rose and (cuffing Rutherford) inquired : 
" Wherefore this chastisement? " The angel said : 



BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 235. 

** Four years you have been President, and still 
There's rum ! ' ' — then flew to Heaven. Contrite, I 

swore 
Such oath as lady Methodist might take, 
My second term should medicine my first. 
The people would not have it that waj^ ; so 
I seek some candidate who'll take my soul— 
My spirit of reform, fresh from my breast. 
And give me his instead ; and thus equipped 
With my imperious and fiery essence, 
Drive the Drink-Demon from the land and fill 
The people up with water till their teeth 

Are all afloat. 

(St. John discovers himself.) 

What, you ? 

St. John : 

Aye, Madam, I'll 
Swap souls with you and lead the cold sea-green 
Amphibians of Prohibition on, 

Pallid of nose and webbed of foot, swim-bladdered. 
Gifted with gills, invincible ! 

Mrs. Hayes : 

Enough, 
Stand forth and consummate the interchange. 
( While McDonald and Pitts-Stevens modestly turn their 
backs, the latter blushing a delicate shrimp-pink, St. John and 
Mrs. Hayes effect an exchange of immortal parts. When the 
transfer is complete McDonald turns a7id advances, uncorking 
a bottle of Vinegar Bitters. ) 

McDonald (chanting) : 
Nectar compounded of simples 
Cocted in Stygian shades — 



236 BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 

Acids of wrinkles and pimples 

From faces of ancient maids- 
Acrid precipitates sunken 

From tempers of scolding wives 
Whose husbands, uncommonly drunken, 

Are commonly found in dives, — 
With this I baptize and appoint thee 

(to St. John. ) 

To marshal the vinophobe ranks. 
In the name of Dambosh I anoint thee 

(poiu'S the liquid down St. John s back.) 

As King of aquatical cranks ! 

(The liquid blisters the royal back, and His Majesty starts 
on a dead 7'un, energetically exclaiming. Exit St. John.) 

Mrs. Hayes : 
My soul ! My soul ! I'll never get it back 
Unless I follow nimbh' on his track. 

(ExitMi^s. Hayes.) 

Pitts-Stevens : 

m}^ ! he's such a beautiful young man ! 
I'll follow, too, and catch him if I can. 

(Exit Pitts-Stevens.) 
McDonald : 
He scarce is visible, his dust so great I 
Methinks for so obscure a candidate 
He runs quite well. But as for Prohibition — 

1 mean myself to hold the first position. 

(Produces a pocket Jlask, topes a cruel quantity of double- 
distilled thir,ide7--and-lighining out of it, smiles so grimly as to 
■darken all the stage and sings) : 

Though fortunes var}^ let all be merry, 
And then if e'er a disaster befall, 



BLA CK BEE TL ES IN AMBER 237 

At Styx's ferry is Charon's wherry 
In easy call. 

Upon a ripple of golden tipple 

That tipsy ship' 11 convey you best. 
To king and cripple, the bottle's the nipple 
Of Nature's breast ! 
(Curtain.) 



238 BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 



SLICKENS 

DRAMATIS PERSON.-^. 

Hayseed , a Granger 

Nozzi^E a Miner 

RixGDivvY a Statesman 

FEEGor;BT.E a Lawyer 

Junket a Committee 

Scene — Yuba Dam. 

Feegobble, RingdivvVy Nozzle. 
NOZZLK : 

My friends, since '51 I have pursued 

The evil tenor of my waterj^ way, 

Removing hills as by an act of faith — 

RiNGDIVVY : 

Just so ; the steadfast faith of those who hold, 
In foreign lands beyond the Eastern sea, 
The shares in your concern — a simple, blind, 
Unreasoning belief in dividends, 
Still stimulated by assessments which, 
When the skies fall, ensnaring all the larks, 
Will bring, no doubt, a very great return. 
All (singing) : 
O the beautiful assessment, 
The exquisite assessment, 
The regular assessment, 
That makes the water flow. 
RiNGDiWY : 

The rascally assessment ! 



BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 239 

FEEGOBBI.E : 
The murderous assessment ! 

Nozzle : 
The glorious assessment 

That makes my mare to go ! 
FeegobbIvE : 
But, Nozzle, you, I think, were on the point 
Of making a remark about some rights — 
Some certain vested rights 3^ou have acquired 
By long immunity ; for still the law 
Holds that if one do evil undisturbed 
His right to do so ripens with the years ; 
And one may be a villain long enough 
To make himself an honest gentleman. 
A1.1. (singing) : 
Hail, holy law, 
The soul with awe 

Bows to th}^ dispensation. 

Nozzle : 
It breaks my j aw ! 

RiNGDIVVY : 
It qualms my maw ! 

Feegobble : 
It feeds my jaw, 
It crams my maw, 

It is my soul's salvation ! 

Nozzle : 
Why, 5^es, I've floated mountains to the sea 
For lo ! these many years ; though some, the}' say, 
Do strand themselves along the bottom lands 



240 BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 

And cover up a village here and there, 
And here and there a ranch. 'Tis said, indeed^ 
The granger with his female and his young 
Do not infrequently go to the dickens 
By premature burial in slickens. 
Aiviv (singiJig) : 
Could slickens forever 
Choke up the river. 
And slime's endeavor 

Be tried on grain, 
How small the measure 
Of granger's treasure. 
How keen his pain ! 

RiNGDIVVY : 

" A consummation devoutly to be wished ! " 

These rascal grangers would long since have been 
Submerged in slimes, to the last man of them, 
But for the fact that all their wicked tribes 
Affect our legislation with their bribes. 
All (singing) : 
O bribery's great — 
'Tis a pillar of State, 

And the people they are free, 

FekGOBBlK : 
It smashes my slate ! 

NozzLK : 
It is thievery straight ! 

RlNGDIV\^ : 

But it's been the making of me ! 
Nozzle : 
I judge by certain shrewd sensations here 



UL A CK BEE TL ES IN A MBER 241 

In these callosities I call 1113' thumbs — 
A thrilling sense as of ten thousand pins, 
Red-hot and penetrant, transpiercing all 
The cuticle and tickling through the nerves — 
That some malign and awful thing draws near. 

(Enter Hayseed. ) 
Good Lord ! here are the ghosts and spooks of all 
The grangers I have decently interred, 
Rolled into one ! 

Fbegobble : 
Plead, phantom. 

RiNGDIVVY : 

You've the floor. 
Hayseed : 
From the margin of the river 
(Bitter Creek, they sometimes call it) 
Where I cherished once the pumpkin, 
And the summer squash promoted, 
Harvested the sweet potato, 
Dallied with the fatal melon 
And subdued the fierce cucumber, 
I've been driven by the slickens. 
Driven by the slimes and tailings ! 
All my family — ni}^ Polly 
Ann and all my sons and daughters, 
Dog and baby both included — 
All were swamped in seas of slickens, 
Buried fifty fathoms under. 
Where thej^ lie, prepared to play their 
Gentle prank on geologic 
Gents that shall exhume them later, 
In the dim and distant future, 



2 BLACK BEETLES LN AMBER 

Taking them for melanchol}^ 

Relics antedating Adam. 

I alone got up and dusted. 
Nozzle : 
Avaunt ! you horrid and infernal cuss ! 
What dire distress have you prepared for us ? 

Were I a buzzard stooping from the sky 

My craw with filth to fill, 
Into your honorable body I 

Would introduce a bill. 

Feegobblk : 
Defendant, hence, or, b}^ the gods, I'll brain thee 1— 
Unless you saved some turneps to retain me. 

Hayseed : 
As I was saying, I got up and dusted, 
My ranch a grave3^ard and my business busted ! 
But hearing that a fellow from the City, 
Who calls himself a Citizens' Committee, 
Was coming up to play the very dickens, 
With those who cover up our farms with slickens, 
And make himself— unless I am in error — 
To all such miscreants a holy terror, 
I thought if I would join the dialogue 
I maybe might get payment for my dog. 

All (Singing) : 
O the dog is the head of Creation, 

Prime work of the Master's hand ; 
He hasn't a known occupation. 

Yet lives on the fat of the land. 
Adipose, indolent, sleek and orbicular, 



BLACK nEETLES IN AMBER 243 

Sun-soaken, door matted, cross and particular, 
Men, women, children, all coddle and wait on him, 
Then, accidentally shutting the gate on him, 
Miss from their calves, ever after, the rifted out 
Mouthful of tendons that doggy has lifted out ! 

(Enter Junket. ) 
JUNKKT : 

Well met, my hearties ! I must trouble you 

Jointly and severally to provide 

A comfortable carriage, with relays 

Of hardy horses. This Committee means 

To move in state about the country here. 

I shall expect at every place I stop 

Good beds, of course, and ever3nhing that's nice, 

With bountiful repast of meat and wine. 

For this Committee comes to see and mark 

And inwardly digest. 

Hayseed : 

Digest my dog ! 
Nozzle : 
First square my claim for damages : the gold 
Escaping with the slickens keeps me poor ! 

I merely would remark that if j^ou'd grease 
My itching palm it would more glibly glide 
Into the public pocket. 

Feegobble : 

Sir, the wheels 
Of justice move but slowly till they're oiled. 
I have some certain writs and warrants here, 
Prepared against your advent. You recall 



244 BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 

The tale of Zaccheus, who did climb a tree, 
And Jesus said : ' ' Come down ' ' ? 

Junket : 

Why, bless your souls ! 
I've got no money ; I but came to see 
What all this noisy babble is about, 
Make a report and file the same away. 

Nozzle, Ringdivvy, Feegobble, Hayseed : 
How'll that help itsf Reports are not our style 
Of provender ! 

Junket : 
Well, 3'ou can gnaw the file. 
(Curtain.) 



BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 



245 



(( 



PKACEABT.K EXPULSION 



DRAMATIS PERSONy^. 

MouNTWAVE a Politician 

Hardhand ." a lVo7-kiiigiuait 

ToK Bak a Chinaman 

Satan a Friend to Mountwave 

Chorus of Foreign Voters. 

Mountwave : 
My friend, I beg that 3^ou will lend yonr ears 
(I know 'tis asking a good deal of you) 
While I for your instruction nominate 
Some certain wrongs j^ou suffer. Men like you 
Imperfectl}^ are sensible of all 
The miseries they actually feel. 
Hence, Providence has prudently raised up 
Clear-sighted men like me to diagnose 
Their cases and inform them where they're hurt. 
The wounds of honest workingmen I 've made 
A specialty, and probing them's my trade. 

Hardhand : 
Well, Mister, s'pose you let yer bossest eye 
Camp on my mortal part awhile ; then you 
Jes' toot my sufferin's an' tell me what's 
The fashionable caper now in writhes — 
The very swellest wiggle. 

Mountwave : 

Well, my lad, 
'Tis plain as is the long, conspicuous nose 



246 BLACK BEETLES LN AMBER 

Borne, ponderous and pendulous, between 
The elephant's remarkable e3^e-teeth 

(Enter Tok Bak.) 
That Chinese competition's what 2ii\syoic. 

Both (Singing) : 
O pig-tail Celestial, 
O barbarous bestial, 

Abominable Chinee ! 
Simian fellow man. 
Primitive yellow man, 

Joshian devotee ! 
Shoe-and-cigar machine, 
Oleomargarine 

You are, and butter are we — 
Fat of the land are we, 

Salt of the earth ; 
In God's image planned to be— 

Noble in birth I 
You, on the contrary, 
Modeled upon very 

Different lines indeed, 
Show in conspicuous. 
Base and ridiculous 

Ways your inferior breed. 
Wretched apology. 
Shame of ethnology, 

Monster unspeakably low ! 
Fit to be buckshotted — 
Be you 'steboycotted. 

Vanish — vamoose — mosy — Go ! 
Tok Bak : 
You listen me ! You beatee the big dlum 



BLACK JiEETLES jy /UfBER 247 

An' tell me go to Flowly Kingdom Come. 
You all too muchee fool. You chinnee heap. 
Such talkee like my washee — belly cheap ! 

(Enter Satan. ) 
You dlive me outee clunty towns all way ; 
Why you no tackle me Safflisco, hay ? 

Satan : 
Methought I heard a murmuring of tongues 
Sound through the ceiling of the hollow earth, 

As if the anti-coolie ques ha ! friends, 

Well met. You see I keep my ancient word : 
Where two or three are gathered in my name, 
There am I in their midst. 

MOUNTWAVE : 

O monstrous thief I 
To quote the words of Shakespeare as 3'our own. 
I know his work. 

Hardhand : 
Who's Shakespeare? — what's his trade? 
I've heard about the work o' that galoot 
Till I'm jest sick! 

ToK Bak : 
Go Sunny school — you'll know 
Mo' Bible. Bime by pleach— hell-talkee. Tell 
'Bout Abel — mebby so he live too cheap. 
He mebby all time dig on lanch — no dlink, 
No splee — no go plocession fo' make vote — 
No sendee money out of clunty fo' 
To helpee Ilishmen. Cain killum. Josh 
He catchee at it, an' he belly mad — 
Say : *' Allee Melicans boycottee Cain." 



248 BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 

Not muchee — you no pleachee that : 
You all same lie. 

MOUNTWAVE : 

This cuss must be expelled. 

(Draws pistol.) 

MouNTWAVE, Hardhand, Satan (singing) : 
For Chinese expulsion, hurrah ! 

To mobbing and murder, all hail ! 
Away with 3^our justice and law — 
We'll make every pagan turn tail. 
Chorus of Foreign Voters : 
Bedad ! oof dot tief o'ze vorld — 
Zat Ivan Tchana}^ vos got hurled 
In Hella, da debil he say : 
" Wor be yer return pairmit, hc}^?" 

Und gry as 'e shaka da boot : 
* ' Zis hay then haf nevaire been oot ! ' ' 
Hardhaxd : 
Too many cooks are working at this broth — 
I think, by thunder, t'will be mostly froth ! 
I'm cussed ef I can sarvy, up to date, 
What good this dern fandango does the State. 

MoUNTWAVE : 
The State's advantage, sir, 3-ou may not see, 
But think how good it is for me. 
Satan : 

And me. 
( Curiai)i.) 



BLACK BEETLES IX AMBER 249 



ASPIRANTS THREE 

DRAMATIS PERSON.^. 

QUICK: 

De; Young a Brother to Mushrooms 

DEAD: 

Swift an Heirloom 

Estee; a Relic 

IMMORTALS: 

The Spirit of Broken Hopes. The Author. 
MISCELLANEO US : 

A Troupe of Coffins. The Moon. Various Coi.- 
ORED Fires. 

Scene — The Political Graveyard at Bone INIountaiii. 

Dk Young : 
This is the spot agreed upon. Here rest 
The sainted statesman who upon the field 
Of honor have at various times laid down 
Their own, and ended, ignominious, 
Their lives political. About me, lo ! 
Their silent headstones, gilded by the moon, 
Half-full and near her setting — midnight. Hark ! 
Through the white mists of this portentous night 
(Which throng in moving shapes about ni}^ way, 
As they were ghosts of candidates I've slain , 
To fray their murderer) my open ear. 
Spacious to maw the noises of the world. 
Engulfs a footstep. 

(Enter Estee from his tomb.) 
Ah, 'tis he, m}^ foe, 
True to appointment ; and so here we fight — 



25"o BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 

Though truly 'twas my firm belief that he 
Would send regrets, or I had not been here. 
EsTEK : 

moon that hast so oft surprised the deeds 
Whereby I rose to greatness ! — tricksy orb, 
The type and symbol of my politics, 

Now draw my ebbing fortunes to their flood, 
As, by the magic of a poultice, boils 
That burn ambitions with defeated fires 
Are lifted into eminence. 

( Sees De J 'on iig. ) 
What ? you ! 
Faith, if I had suspected you would come 
From the fair world of politics wherein 
So lately 3'ou were whelped, and which, alas, 

1 vainly to revisit strive, though still 
Rapped on the rotting head and bidden sleep 
Till Resurrection's morn, — if I had thought 
You would accept the challenge that I flung 

I w^ould have seen you damned ere I came forth 
In the night air, shroud-clad and shivering. 
To fight so mean a thing ! But since you're here. 
Draw and defend 3'ourself. By gad, we'll see 
Who'll be Postmaster-General ! 
De Young : 

We will— 
I'll fight (for I am lame) with any blue 
And redolent remain that dares aspire 
To wreck the Grand Old Grandson's cabinet. 
Here's at you, nosegay ! 
( They draw tongues ajid are about to fight, zuhen/rom ait 
adjacent zuhited sepidcher, enter Swift. ) 



BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 251 

Swift : 
Hold ! put up 3^our tongues ! 
Within the confines of this sacred spot 
Broods such a holy calm as none may break 
By clash of weapons, without sacrilege. 

(Beats down their tongues with a bone.) 
Madmen ! what profits it ? For though you fought 
With such heroic skill that both survived. 
Yet neither should achieve the prize, for I 
Would wrest it from him. Let us not contend, 
But friendliwise by stipulation fix 
A slate for mutual advantage. Wh}^, 
Having the pick and choice of seats, should we 
Forego them all but one ? Nay, we'll take three,, 
And part them so among us that to each 
Shall fall the fittest to his powers. In brief, 
Let us establish a Portfolio Trust. 



KsTEE : 



Agreed. 



De) Young : 
Aye, truly, 'tis a greed — and one 
The offices imperfectl}^ will sate, 
But I'll stand in 

Swift : 

Well, so 'tis understood, 
As you're the junior member of the Trust, 
Politically younger and undead, 
Speak, Michael : what portfolio do 3'ou choose ? 

Dk Young : 
I 've thought the Postal service best would serve 
My interest ; but since I have my pick. 



252 BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 

I'll take the War Department. It is known 

Throughout the world, from Market street to Pine, 

(For a Chicago j ournal told the tale) 

How in this hand I latel}^ took my life 

And marched against great Buckle}^ thundering 

My mandate that he count the ballots fair ! 

Earth heard and shrank to half her size ! Yon moon, 

Which rivaled then a liver's whiteness, paused 

That night at Butchertown and daubed her face 

With sheep's blood ! Then my serried rank I drew 

Back to m}' stronghold without loss. To mark 

M}' care in saving human life and limb, 

The Peace Society bestowed on me 

Its leather medal and the title, too, 

Of Colonel. Yes, my genius is for war. Good land ! 

I naturally dote on a brass band ! 

(Sings.) 
O, give me a life on the tented field, 

Where the cannon roar and ring. 
Where the flag floats free and the foemen yield 

And bleed as the bullets sing. 
But be it not mine to wage the fray 
Where matters are ordered the other way, 

For that is a different thing. 

•O, give me a life in the fierce campaign — 

lyCt it be the life of my foe : 
I'd rather fall upon him than the plain ; 

That service I'd fain forego. 
O, a warrior's life is fine and free, 
£ut a warrior's death — ah me ! ah me ! 

That's a different thing, 3^ou know. 



BLACK' 1:1:ETLES IN AMBER 253 

ESTEE : 
Some claim I might myself advance to that 
Portfolio. When Rebellion raised its head, 
And you, my friends, stayed meekly in your shirts, 
I marched with banners to the party stump, 
Spat on my hands, made faces fierce as death, 
Shook my two fists at once and introduced 
Brave resolutions terrible to read ! 
Nay, only recently, as you do know, 
I conquered Treason by the word of mouth, 
And slew, with Samson's weapon, the whole South ! 

Swift : 
You once fought Stanford, too. 

EsTEE : 

Enough of that — 
Give me the Interior and I'll devote 
My mind to agriculture and improve 
The breed of cabbages, especially 
The Brassica Celeritatis^ named 
For you because in da}- s of long ago 
You sold it at your market stall, — and, faith, 
'Tis said 3^ou w^ere an honest huckster then, 
I'll be Attorney-General if you 
Prefer ; for know I am a lawyer too I 

Swift : 
I never have heard that ! — did 3^ou, De Young? 

De Young : 
Never, so help me ! And I swear I've heard 
A score of Judges sa}' that he is not. 

Swift (to Estee) : 
You take the Interior. I might aspire 



^54 BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 

To military station too, for once 
I led my party into Pixley's camp, 
And he paroled me. I defended, too, 
The State of Oregon against the sharp 
And bloody tooth of the Australian sheep. 
But I've an aptitude exceeding neat 
For bloodless battles of diplomacy. 
My cobweb treaty of Exclusion once, 
Through which a hundred thousand coolies sailed, 
Was much admired, but most by Colonel Bee. 
Though born a tinker I'm a diplomat 
From old Missouri, and I — ha ! what's that? 
(Exit Moon. Enter Blue Lights on all the tombs, and a 
circle of Red Fire on the grass ; in the center the Spirit of 
Broken Hopes, a7id round abottt, a Troupe of Coffins, dancing 
and singing.) 

Chorus of Coffins : 
Two bodies dead and one alive — 

Yo, ho, merrily all ! 
Now for boodle strain and strive — - 

Buzzards all a-warble, O ! 
Prophets three, agape for bread ; 
Raven with a stone instead — 

Providential raven ! 
Judges two and Colonel one — 
Run, run, rustics, run I 
But it's O, the pig is shaven, 
And oily, oily all ! 
(Exennt Coffins, dancing. The Spirit of Broken Hopes 
advances, solemnly pointing at each of the Three Worthies in 
turn.) 

Spirit of Broken Hopes: 
Governor, Governor, editor man. 



BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 255 

Rust}', must}', spick-and-span, 
Harlequin, harridan, dicky-dout. 
Demagogue, charlatan — o, u, t, out ! 

(De Young falls and sleeps. ) 

Antimonopoler, diplomat, 
Railroad lacke^^, political rat, 
One, two, three — SCAT ! 

(Swift falls and sleeps. ) 

Boycotting chin-worker, working to woo 
Fortune, the fickle, to smile uponjjw^, 
Jo-coated acrobat, shuttle-cock — shoo ! 

( Estee falls and sleeps.) 

Now they lie in slumber sweet. 
Now the charm is all complete. 
Hasten I with flying feet 
Where bej^ond the further sea 
A babe upon its mother's knee 
Is gazing into skies afar 
And crying for a golden star, 
I '11 drag a cloud across the blue 
And break that infant's heart in two ! 
( Exennt the Spirit of Bi^oken Hopes and the Red and Blue 
Fires. Re-enter Moo n . ) 

ESTEK (waking) : 
Why, this is strange ! I dreamed I know not what. 
It seemed that certain apparitions were, 
Which sang uncanny words, significant 
And yet ambiguous — half- understood — 
Portending evil ; and an awful spook, 
Even as I stood with m}^ accomplices, 
Counted me out, as children do in play. 
Is that you, Mike ? 



256 BLACK BEETLES LN AMBER 

De Young (waking): 

It was. 

Swift (waking): 

Am I all that ? 
Then I'll reform my waj^s. 

(Reforms his zaays.) 
Ah ! had I known 
How sweet it is to be an honest man 
I never would have stooped to turn my coat 
For public favor, as chameleons take 
The hue (as near as they can judge) of that 
Supporting them. Henceforth I '11 buy 
With money all the offices I need, 
And know the pleasure of an honest life, 
Or stay forever in this dismal place. 
Now that I'm good, it will no longer do 
To make a third with such a wicked two. 

(Returns to Iiis tomb.) 
De Young : 
Prophetic dream ! by some good angel sent 
To make me with a quiet life content. 
The question shall no more my bosom irk, 
To go to Washington or go to work. 
From Fame's debasing struggle I'll withdraw, 
And taking up the pen lay down the law. 
I'll leave this rogue, lest my example make 
An honest man of him — his heart would break. 

(Exit De Young.; 

ESTEE : 
Out of my company these converts flee, 
But that advantage is denied to me : 
My curst identity's confining skin 



BI. A CK BEE TL ES AV A MBER 257 

Xor lets me out nor tolerates me in. 
Well, since my hopes eternally have fled, 
And, dead before, I'm more than ever dead, 
To find a grander tomb be now my task. 
And pack my pork into a stolen cask. 
(Exit, searching. Loud calls for the Author, ivho appears, 
bo-juing and smiling.) 

AjjTTLO^ ( singing ) : 
Jack Satan's the greatest of gods. 
And Hell is the best of abodes. 
'Tis reached, through the Valley of Clods, 
By seventy different roads. 
Hurrah for the Seventy Roads ! 
Hurrah for the clods that resound 
With a hollow, thundering sound ! 
Hurrah for the Best of Abodes ! 

We'll serve him as long as we've breath- 
Jack Satan the greatest of gods. 

To all of his enemies, death ! — 
A home in the Valley of Clods. 
Hurrah for the thunder of clods 

That smother the soul of his foe ! 

Hurrah for the spirits that go 

To dwell with the Greatest of Gods ; 

(Curtain /alls to faint odor of mortality. Exit the Gas. ) 



258 BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 



THE BIRTH OF THE RAIL 

DRAMATIS PERSON^. 

LeIvAND, the Kid a Road Aigent 

Cowboy Chari^ev Sar,ie Line of Busi7icss 

Happy Kunty Ditto in All Respects 

SooTYMUG a Devil 

Sce7ic — the Dutch Tlat Stage Road, at 12 p. m,, on a Night 
of 1S64. 

Cowboy Charley : 
My boss, I fear she is delayed to-night. 
Already it is past the hour, and y^\. 
My ears have reached no sotind of wheels ; no note 
Melodious, of long, luxurious oaths 
Betokens the traditional dispute 
(Unsettled from the dawn of time) between 
The driver and off wheeler ; no clear chant 
Nor carol of Wells Fargo' s mes.senger 
Unbosoming his soul upon the air — 
Singing his prow^ess to the tender-foot. 
And how at divers times in sundry ways 
He strewed the roadside with our carcasses. 
Clearly, the stage will not come by to-night. 

Leland, the Kid : 

I now remember that but yesterday 
I saw three ugly looking fellows start 
From Colfax with a gun apiece, and they 
Did seem on business of importance bent , 
Furtively casting all their ej^es about 



BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 259 

And covering their tracks with all the care 

That business men do use. I think perhaps 

They were Directors of that rival line, 

The great Pacific Mail. If so, they have 

Indubitably taken in that coach, 

And we are overreached. Three times before 

This thing has happened, and if once again 

These outside operators dare to cut 

Our rates of profit I shall quit the road 

And take my money out of this concern. 

When robbery no longer pays expense 

It loses then its chiefest charm for me, 

And I prefer to cheat— you hear me shout ! 
Happy Hunty: 

My chief, you do but echo back my thoughts : 

This competition is the death of trade. 

'Tis plain (unless we wish to go to work) 

Some other business we must early find. 

What shall it be ? The field of usefulness 

Is yearly narrowing with the advance 

Of wealth and population on this coast. 

There's little left that any man can do 

Without some other fellow stepping in 

And doing it as well. If one essay 

To pick a pocket he is sure to feel 

(With what disgust I need not say to you) 

Another hand inserted in the same. 

You crack a crib at dead of night, and lo ! 

As you explore the dining-room for plate 

You find, in session there, a graceless band 

Stuffing their coats with spoons, their skins with wine. 

And so it goes. Why even undertake 



26o BLACK BEETLES LN AMBER 

To salt a mine and 3^ou will find it rich 
With noble specimens placed there before ! 

Lkland, the Kid: 
And yet this line of immigration has 
Advantages superior to aught 
That elsewhere offers : all these passengers, 

If punched with care 

Cow-boy Charley : 

Significant remark ! 
It opens up a prospect wade and fair, 
Suggesting to the thoughtful mind — my mind— 
A scheme that is the boss lay-out. Instead 
Of stopping passengers, let's carry them. 
Instead of crying out : ' ' Throw up your hands ! ' ' 
Let's say : " Walk up and buy a ticket ! ' ' Why 
Should we unwieldy goods and bullion take, 
Watches and all such trifles, when we might 
Far better charge their value three times o'er 
For carrying them to market ? 

ICELAND, The Kid : 

Put it there. 
Old son ! 

Happy Hunty : 
You take the cake, my dear. We'll build 
A mighty railroad through this pass, and then 
The stage folk will come up to us and squeal, 
And say : " It is bad medicine for both : 
What wall you give or take ? ' ' And then we'll sell. 

Cowboy Charley : 
Enlarge 3^our notions, little one ; this is 
No petty, slouching, opposition scheme, 



BLACK BEETLES IN A3LBER 261 

To be bought off like honest men and fools ; 

Mine eye prophetic pierces through the mists 

That cloud the future, and I seem to see 

A well-devised and executed scheme 

Of wholesale robbery within the law 

(Made by ourselves) — great, permanent, sublime, 

And strong to grapple with the public throat — 

Shaking the stuffing from the public purse, 

The tears from bankrupt merchants' eyes, the blood 

From widows' famished carcasses, the bread 

From orphans' mouths ! 

Happy Hunty : 

Hoora}" ! 

lyKLAND, Thk Kid : 

Hooraj" ! 
Ali.: 

Hoora}' ! 
( They tear the masks fi'oin tli eh- faces, and discharghig their 
shotguns, throw them into the chapparal. Then they join hands, 
dance and sing the following song :) 

Ah ! blessed to measure 
The glittering treasure ! 

Ah ! blessed to heap up the gold 
Untold 
That flows in a wide 
And deepening tide — 
Rolled, rolled, rolled 
From multifold sources. 
Converging its courses 

Upon our 

Ueland, Thl: Kid : 
Just wait a bit, my pards, I thought I heard 



262 BLACK BEETLES LN AMBER 

A sneaking grizzly cracking the dry twigs. 
Such an intrusion might deprive the State 
Of all the good that we intend it. Ha ! 

{Enter Sootymug. LLe saunters carelessly in and grace- 
fully leans his back against a redwood.) 
Sootymug : 
My boys, I thought I heard 

Some careless revelry, 
As if your minds were stirred 
By some new devilry. 
I too am in that line. Indeed, the mission 

On which I come 

Happy Hunty : 
Here's more damned competition ! 
( Curiam, ) 



BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 263 



A BAD NIGHT 

DRAMATIS PERSON^. 

ViTXiAM CI Sen 

NeedIvESON a Sidniduc 

SMI1.ER , (t Scheister 

Ki-Yi a Trader 

Grimgh AST a Spader 

Sarai^thia a Love-lorn Nymph 

NEiviyiBRAC ci Sweetun 

A Body ; a Ghost ; an UnmenTionabt.e Thing ; Skut.i.s ; 

HOODOOS ; ETC. 
Scene — a Cemetery in San Francisco. 

Saralthia, Nellibrac, Grimghasi. 
Saralthia : 
The red half-moon is dipping to the west, 
And the cold fog invades the sleeping land. 
Lo ! how the grinning skulls in the level light 
Litter the place I Methinks that every skull 
Is a most lifelike portrait of m}^ Sen, 
Drawn b}^ the hand of Death ; each fleshless pate, 
Cursed with a ghastly grin to eyes unrubbed 
With love's magnetic ointment, seems to mine 
To smile an amiable smile like his 
Whose amiable smile I — I alone 
Am able to distinguish from his leer ! 
See how the gathering coj^otes flit 
Through the lit spaces, or with burning eyes 



264 BLACK BEETLES LV AMBER 

Star the black shadows with a steadfast gaze ! 

About my feet the poddy toads at play, 

Bulbously comfortable, try to hop, 

And tumble clumsily wdth all their warts ; 

While pranking lizards, sliding up and down 

My limbs, as they were public roads, impart 

A singularly interesting chill. 

The circumstance and passion of the time. 

The cast and manner of the place — the spirit 

Of this confederate environment, 

Command the rights we come to celebrate 

Obedient to the Inspired Hag — 

The seventh daughter of the seventh daughter, 

Who rules all destinies from Minna street, 

A dollar a destin3\ Here at this grave, 

Which for ni}- purposes thou. Jack of Spades™ 

( To Grimghast ) 
Corrupter than the thing that reeks below — 
Hast opened secretly, we'll w^ork the charm. 
Now what's the hour? 

(Distant clock strikes thirteen. ) 

Enough — hale forth the stiff! 
(Grimghast hy means of a boat-hook stands the coffin on end 
in the excavation ; the lid crumbles, exposing the remains of a 
man.) 

Ha ! Master Mouldybones, how fare you, sir? 

Thk Body : 
Poorly, I thank your ladyship ; I miss 
Some certain fingers and an ear or two. 
There's something, too, gone wrong with my inside, 
And my periphery 's not what it was. 
How can we serve each other, you and I ? 



BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 265 

Nellibrac: 
O what a personable man ! 

(BlusJies bashfully, drops her eyes and twists the comer of 
her apron.) 

Saralthia : 

Yes, dear, 
A very proper and alluring male, 
And quite superior to lyubin Rroyd, 
Who has, however, this distinct advantage — 
He is alive , 

Grimghast : 
Missus, these 3^er remains 
Was the boss singer back in '72, 
And used to allers git invites to go 
Down to Swellmont and sing at every feed. 
In t'other Villiam's time, that was, afore 
The gent that you've hooked onto bought the place. 

Thk Body (singino;): 
Down among the sainted dead 

Many years I la}^ ; 
Beetles occupied my head, 

Moles explored my clay. 

There we feasted day and night — 

I and bug and beast ; 
They provided appetite 

And I supplied the feast. 

The raven is a dickj^-bird, 
Saralthia (shigiyig) : 
The jackal is a dais3% ^ 



266 BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 

Nellibrac (singing) : 
The wall-mouse is a worthy third, 
A SPOOK (singi7ig) : 
But mortals all are crazy. 

Chorus of Skulls : 
O mortals all are crazy, 
Their intellects are hazy ; 
In the growing moon they shake their shoon 
And trip it in the mazy. 

But when the moon is waning, 
Their senses they're regaining: 
They fall to prayer and from their hair 
Remove the straws remaining. 

Saralthia : 
That's right, Rogues Gallery, pray keep it up : 
Your song recalls my Villiam's "Auld Lang Syne," 
What time he came and (like an amorous bird 
That struts before the female of its kind, 
Warbling to cave her down the bank) piped high 
His cracked falsetto out of reach. Enough^ — 
Now let's to business. Nellibrac, sweet child, 
St. Cloacina's future devotee. 
The time is ripe and rotten — gut the grip ! 
(Nellibrac brings foi'ward a valise and takes from it Jive 
articles of clothing^ which, one by one, she lays upon the points 
of a magic pentagram that has thoughtfully iiiscribed itself in 
lines of light on the wet grass. The Body holds its late lamented 
nose.) 

Nellibrac (singing)-. 

Fragant socks, by Villiam's toes 
Consecrated to the nose ; 



BLACK BEETLES IN AMIJER 267 

Shirt that shows the well worn track 
Of the knuckles of his back , 

Handkerchief with mottled stains, 
Into which he blew his brains ; 

Collar crying out for soap — 
Prophet of the future rope ; 

An unmentionable thing 
It would sicken me to sing. 

Unmentionable Thing (aside) : 
What ! / unmentionable ? Just 3^ou wait ! 
In all the family journals of the State 
You'll sometime see that I'm described at length, 
With supereditorial grace and strength. 

Saralthia (singing) : 
Throw them in the open tomb 
They will cause his love to bloom 
With an amator}^ boom ! 

Chorus of Invisible Hoodoos: 
Hoodoo, hoodoo, voudou-vet 
A'illiam struggles in the net ! 
By the power and intent 
Of the charm his strength is spent ! 
By the virtue in each rag 
Blessed by the Inspired Hag 
He will be a willing victim 
Limp as if a donkey kicked him I 
By this awful incantation 
We decree his animation — 



^68 BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 

By the magic of our art 
Warm the cockles of his heart, 
Villiam, if alive or dead. 
Thou Saralthia shalt wed ! 

( They cast the garments into the grave and push over the 
■coffin. Grir.ighast fills iip the hole. Hoodoos gradually become 
apparent in a phosphorescent light about the grave, holding one 
ajiother's back-hair and dancing in a circle.) 

Hoodoo Song and Danck : 
O we're the larrikin hoodoos ! 
The chirruping, lirruping hoodoos ! 
We mix things up that the Fates ordain, 
Bring back the past and the present detain , 
Postpone the future and sometimes tether 
The three and drive them abreast together — 
We rollicking, frolicking hoodoos ! 

To us all things are the same as none 
And nothing is that is under the sun. 
Seven's a dozen and never is then, 
Whether is what and wdiat is when, 
A man is a tree and a cuckoo a cow 
For gold galore and silver enow 
To magical, mystical hoodoos! 

Saralthia : 
AVhat monstrous shadow darkens all the place, 

(Enter Smyler. ) 

Flung like a doom athwart — ha ! — thou ? 
Portentous presence, art thou not the same 
That stalks with aspect horrible among 
Small 3^ouths and maidens, baring snaggy teeth. 
Champing their tender limbs till crimson spume, 



BLACK BEETLES LV AMBER 269 

Flung from tli}^ lips in cursing God and man, 
Incarnadines the land ? 

Smyler : 

Thou dammid slut ! 

(Exit Smyler.) 
Nellibrac : 

what a pretty man ! 

Saraethia 

Now who is next? 
Of tramps and casuals this graveyard seems 
Prolific to a fault [ 
(Enter Needleson, exhaling, prophetically, an odor of de- 
cayed eggs and, actually, one of unlaundj'ied linen. He darts an 
intense regard at an adjacent marble angel and places his open 
hand behind his ear.) 

Needleson : 

Hay? 

(Exit Needleson.) 

NelEIBRAC : 

Sweet, sweet male ! 

1 yearn to play at Copenhagen with him ! 

(Blushes diligently and energetically.) 

Chorus of Skulls : 
Hoodoos, hoodoos, disappear — 
Some dread deity draws near ! 

( Exeu n t Hoodos. ) 

Smitten with a sense of doom, 
The dead are cowering in the tomb, 
Seas are calling, stars are falling 
And appalling is the-gloom ! 
Fragmentary flames are flung 
Through the air the trees among ! 



270 BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 

Lo! each hill inclines its head — 
Earth is bending 'neath his thread ! 
(On the co7itraiy, entei' Villiam o?t a chip, navigating' an 
odor of mignonette. Saralthia springs forward to put him in 
her pocket, but he is instantly retracted by an invisible string. 
She falls headlong, breaking her heart. Reenter Villiam, 
Needleson, Smyler. All gather about Saralthia, who loudly 
laments her accident. The Spirit of Tar-and Feathers^ rising 
like a black smoke in their midst, executes a monstrous wink of 
graphic and vivid significance, then contemplates them zvith an 
obviously baptismal intention. The cross on Lone Momitain 
takes fii'e, splendoring the Peninsula. Tableau, Curtain.) 



ON STONE 



As in a dream ^ strange epitaphs I see, 
Inscribed on yet unquarried stone, 
Where wither flowers yet imstrown- 

The Campo Santo of the time to lie. 



A WREATH OF IMMORTELLES 



LORING PICKERING 

(After Pope) 

Here rests a writer, great but not immense , 

Born destitute of feeling and of sense. 

No power he but o'er his brain desired — 

How not to suffer it to be inspired. 

Ideas unto him were all unknown, 

Proud of the words which, only, were his own. 

So unreflecting, so confused his mind, 

Torpid in error, indolently blind, 

A fever Heaven, to quicken him, applied. 

But, rather than revive, the sluggard died. 



A WATER-PIRATE 

Pause, stranger — whence you lightly tread 
Bill Carr's immoral part has fled. 
For him no heart of woman burned, 
But all the rivers' heads he turned. 
Alas ! he now lifts up his eyes 
In torment and for water cries, 
Entreating that he may procure 
One drop to cool his parched McClure ! 



BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 2.^s, 

C. P. BERRY 

Here's crowbait !— ravens, too, and daws 
Flock hither to advance their caws, 
And, with a sudden courage armed, 
Devour the foe who once alarmed — 
In life and death a fair deceit : 
Nor strong to harm nor good to eat. 
King bogey of the scarecrow host, 
When known the least affrighting most, 
Though light his hand (his mind was dark) 
He left on earth a straw Berry mark. 



THK REV. JOSEPH HEMPHILL 

He preached that sickness he could floor 

By prayer and by commanding ; 
When sick himself he sent for four 

Physicians in good standing. 
He was struck dead despite their care, 

For, fearing their dissension, 
He secretly put up a prayer, 

Thus drawing God's attention. 



Cynic perforce from studying mankind 

In the false volume of his single mind. 

He damned his fellows for his own un worth, 

And, bad himself, thought nothing good on earth. 

Yet, still so judging and so erring still, 

Observing well, but understanding ill, 

His learning all was got by dint of sight. 

And what he learned by day he lost by night. 

When hired to flatter he would never cease 



275 BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 

Till those who'd paid for praises paid for peace. 

Not wholl}^ miser and but half a knave, 

He 3^earned to squander but he lived to save, 

And did not, for he could not, cheat the grave. 

Hie jacet Pixley, scribe and muleteer : 

Step lightly, stranger, anywhere but here. 



McAi^LiSTER, of talents rich and rare, 
Ivies at this spot at finish of his race. 

Alike to him if it is here or there : 

The one spot that he cared for was the ace. 



He:re; lies Joseph Redding, who gave us the catfish. 
He dined upon every fish except that fish. 
'Twas touching to hear him expounding his fad 
With a heart full of zeal and a mouth full of shad. 
The catfish miaowed with unspeakable woe 
When Death, the lone fisherman, landed their Jo. 



Judged Sawykr, whom in vain the people tried 
To push from power, here is laid aside. 
Death only from the bench could ever start 
The sluggish load of his immortal part. 



John Irish went, one luckless day, 
To loaf and fish at San Jose. 
He got no loaf, he got no fish : 
They brained him with an empty dish ! 
They laid him in this place asleep — 
O come, ye crocodiles, and weep. 



BLACK BEETLES IX AMBER 276 

In Sacramento City here 

This wooden monument we rear 

In memory of Dr. May, 

Whose smile even Death could not allay » 

He's buried, Heaven alone knows where. 

And only the hyenas care ; 

This May-pole merely marks the spot 

Where, ere the wretch began to rot, 

Fame's trumpet, with its brazen bray, 

Bawled: ''Who (and why) was Dr. May?" 



Dennis Spkncer's mortal coil 
Here is laid away to spoil — 
Great riparian, who said 
Not a stream should leave its bed. 
Now his soul would like a river 
Turned upon its parching liver. 



For those this mausoleum is erected 
Who Stanford to the Upper House elected. 
Their luck is less or their promotion slower, 
For, dead, the}^ were elected to the Lower. 



Beneath this stone lies Reuben Lloyd, 
Of breath deprived, of sense devoid. 
The Templars' Captain-General, he 
So formidable seemed to be. 
That had he not been on his back 
Death ne'er had ventured to attack. 



277 BLACK BEETLES LN AMBER 

Here lies Barnes in all his glor}^ — 

Master he of oratOr^^ 

When he died the people weeping, 

(For they thought him only sleeping) 

Cried : ' ' Although he now is quiet 

And his tongue is not a riot, 

Soon, the spell that binds him breaking, 

He a motion will be making. 

Then, alas, he'll rise and speak 

In support of it a week. 



Rash mortal ! stay thy feet and look around- 
This vacant tomb as yet is holy ground ; 
But soon, alas ! Jim Fair will occupy 
These premises — then, holiness, good-bye/ 



Here Salomon's body reposes; 
Bring roses, ye rebels, bring roses. 
Set all of your drumsticks a-rolling, 
Discretion and Valor extrolling ; 
Discretion — he always retreated — 
And Valor — the dead he defeated. 
Brings roses, ye loyal, bring roses : 
As patriot here he re-poses. 



When Waterman ended his bright career 
He left his wet name to history here. 
To carry it with him he did not care : 
'Twould tantalize spirits of statesmen There. 



BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 278 

Here lie the remains of Fred Emerson Brooks, 
A poet, as every one knew by his looks 
Who hadn't unluckily met with his books. 

On civic occasions he sprang to the fore 

With poems consisting of stanzas three score. 

The men whom they deafened enjoyed them the more. 

Of reason his fantasy knew not the check *. 

All forms of inharmony came at his beck. 

The weight of his ignorance fractured his neck. 

In this peaceful spot, so the grave-diggers say, 
With pen, ink and paper they laid him away — 
The Poet-elect of the Judgment Day. 



George Perry here lies stiff and stark, 
With stone at foot and stone at head. 

His heart was dark, his mind was dark — 
Ignorant ass ! " the people said. 

Not ignorant but skilled, alas, 
In all the secrets of his trade : 

He knew more ways to be an ass 
Thin any ass that ever brayed. 



Here lies the last of Deacon Fitch, 
Whose business was to melt the pitch. 
Convenient to this sacred spot 
lyies Sammy, who applied it, hot. 
'Tis hard — so much alike they smell— 



2/9 BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 

One's grave from t 'other's grave to tell, 
But when his tomb the Deacon's burst 
(Of two he'll always be the first) 
He'll see by studying the stones 
That he's obtained his proper bones, 
Then, seeking Sammy's vault, unlock it. 
And put that person in his pocket. 



Benkath this stone O'Donnell's tongue's at rest- 
Our noses by his spirit still addressed. 
Living or dead, he's equally Satanic — 
His noise a terror and his smell a panic. 



When Gabriel blows a dreadful blast 
And swears that Time's forever past, 
Days, weeks, months, years all one at last, 
Then Asa Fiske, laid here, distressed, 
Will beat (and skin his hand) his breast : 
There'll be no rate of interest ! 



Step lightly, stranger : here Jerome B. Cox 
Is for the second time in a bad box. 
He killed a man— the labor party rose 
And showed hiA by its love how killing goes 



When Vrooman here lay down to sleep, 
The other dead awoke to weep. 
" Since he no longer lives, " they said 
* •' Small honor comes of being dead. ' ' 



28o BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER 

HerK Porter Ashe is laid to rest 
Green grows the grass upon his breast. 
This patron of the turf, I vow, 
Ne'er served it half so well as now. 



LiKB a cold fish escaping from its tank, 
Hence fled the soul of Joe Russel, crank. 
He cried : ' ' Cold water ! ' ' roaring like a beast. 
'Twas thrown upon him and the music ceased. 



Herb Estee rests. He shook a basket, 
When, like a jewel from its casket. 
Fell Felton out. Said Estee, shouting 
With mirth ; "I've given you an outing." 
Then told him to go back. He wouldn't. 
Then tried \o put him back. He couldn't. 
So Estee died (his blood congealing 
In Felton' s growing shadow) squealing. 



Mourn here for one Bruner, called EUvood. 
He doesn't — he never did — smell good 

To noses of critics and scholars. 
If now he'd an office to sell could 
He sell it ? O, no — where (in Hell) could 

He find a cool four hundred dollars ? 



Here Stanford lies, who thought it odd 
That he should go to meet his God. 
He looked, until his eyes grew dim, 
P'or God to hasten to meet him. 







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